Karaoke Forums

What kind of contracts, limited insurance contracts, since if you obtain insurance it is also sold as a contract. I guess that is why they need few hard discs, since they have switched from the production business, to the selling protection racket.

Having produced CDs and DVDs for 15 years, I think Harrington may have misspoke.

A quality master has a limited lifespan, so using an old "Master" is a "limited duty cycle solution".

Not sure the factory would even accept an old master to start a new run.
Even if true, burning is cheaper and quicker. The above didn't pass the "Sniff Test"..

That's because, as usual, Mr. Staley mischaracterized what I said. The CB products Phoenix sells are new goods (not resale discs) produced by copying from original CB discs. (The new goods include burned discs and digital media.) Your use of the term "master" in the disc production sense is accurate as far as it goes, but in licensing, the term "master" refers to any source from which production will be made, not only, for example, a glass master used to press CDs. That's why Mr. Staley's reference to "dumpster diving" is a lie--but that's par for his course.

Hmmm... let's take a closer look at this:

QUESTION: Did PEP do any musical production on any product with the CB logo on it?
ANSWER: Nope. Not a single note.

QUESTION: Did PEP take an old CB disc --off the shelf or out of a dumpster of public domain junk to quote above "produced by copying from original CB discs" -- and call it their own "new production from old masters?"
ANSWER: YEP.

QUESTION: Would you call that "misleading?"

ANSWER: _________________
(fill in the blank)

ANSWER: YES, Very Misleading

Let's hope that due to taking over Cabs trademark and putting out the music that they copied, the publisher who sued Chartbuster out of existence doesn't decide to hold PEP accountable for Chartbuster's debt to them.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Jim?? Any answer to my question??

I'm guessing that the term "master" is being used quite loosely in this thread as that isn't quite the way it works. If you're referring to "masters" as the CD one-offs that are submitted to a pressing plant for replication, then those "masters" are used only once to create a glass master which in turn are used to create the stampers. The one-offs are usually returned to the customer for their files. These CD one-offs contain what are known as E70 errors that must be corrected in the glass mastering process. If a customer needed to re-glass (something I've never had the experience of having happened), then the actual pressed disc makes a better "master" than the original CD one-off because the pressed CDs are free of E70 errors. E70 errors aren't as critical with CD-ROM or CD-Audio. A certain amount of E70s are acceptable depending on the type of data and error correction used in the format, but CD+G has no tolerance for E70 errors.

If you are referring to the glass substrates as "masters" then these masters aren't used to press discs but rather to make stampers so they wouldn't be subject to a "duty cycle" either. The glass substrates are retained by either the pressing plant or the glass mastering house (if it's a separate facility) in case the customer needs to reorder. The last thing any customer would want to do is to go through the expense of making another glass "master" in the likely event of a reorder. A glass master doesn't really have a limited lifespan unless the pressing plant is stupid enough to use the glass as a stamper (which they have been known to do on special runs where there's no possibility of a reorder and the quantities are small). However the metal stampers used in the injection molding process are made from the glass masters and are of a soft metal, and do have a limited duty cycle, but these are not "masters" per se, but are considered the "father" stamper (which in turn makes the stamper "children" which are the stampers used to press the polycarbonate) of the glass substrate.

As far as it being cheaper and quicker .... quicker for sure, cheaper not so much, depending on order quantity. The last few years I did all of my production in house complete with a Mihn Lihn packaging machine, a polywrap wrap machine, a digital printer for the booklets and tray cards, a guillotine to cut the paper stock to fit the digital printer, a tray card perforation machine and a screen printing machine. We also had a half dozen or so automatic duplicators with built in thermal text printers for short runs. All of these machines were huge except for the digital printer, duplicators and the perf machine, and had to be brought in to the building via a rigging company with a crane. I was in the process of purchasing an actual injection molding CD line (without glass mastering) which would have taken up over 10,000 square feet of my building (nearly an entire floor) so I passed. In any event, by the time you amortize the cost of the equipment, supplies, ink, etc. it was almost never cheaper, but it took off over a week of our delivery cycle which when your product niche is current hits, is a big deal. However it did save a bit of warehouse space as all we had to stock were blank CDs, unassembled jewel cases, tray cards, paper stock, and the rolls of poly-wrap, etc.

All true.. The metal stamper is (or can be) made from a nickel blank.
Much tougher than the glass master.
Prices today are down to "Commodity Level", and wish I could go back in time and
use today's prices..
I too was discouraged by piracy.
All my product line was duplicated by others as soon as
it hit the shelves.
Most of my product was distributed from my NY warehouse, and I sold wholesale and retail here in Hollwierd, CA.
A group of Canadian hijackers slipped into NY and emptied that warehouse, another someone emptied my LA truck.
Later, my product was available in the San Francisco area, and Canada.
I was done by then..
Yore mileage will vary..

I don't understand your question.

Sorry to hear that, but I feel your pain. Back in the day before the hard drive pirates, there were the disc pirates, and not all of them were using Jeff Arnold's Golden Hawk and CD-Rs. I actually saw pressed copies of some of my products that were convincingly similar to the original. Even the artwork was very close, but not exact so that was one way of confirming that they were counterfeit. Also the trim ring didn't bear the ID of any of the pressing plants that I was using so they were obviously being replicated elsewhere, most likely in China. I swear sometimes the pirates were releasing my products before I was. Unfortunately we got no support from publishers, and it wasn't due to my lack of trying. Either they couldn't be bothered or they preferred the revenue stream from suing the labels, or possibly a combination of the two, but either way when there were 10 pirated discs sold for every legitimate disc I sold, it made paying the royalties a challenge at times, but nevertheless it was still cheaper than the alternative, which in the end happened anyway.

You speak of how the pro-piracy crowd is ready to jump on any perceived misstep. Such as how people in this forum assume you are still employed by PEP because of certain words or phrases you use in your replies. Is this the perceived belief that PEP is using in the courts claiming that the audience will perceive that the KJ is working for PEP because he/she is using an SC karaoke song in their show?

I don't think it's the same thing. There's a lot more to PEP's theory of consumer confusion. For one thing, it's not "an SC song." It's dozens of SC songs, night after night, largely to the exclusion of other brands, when they haven't paid a dime for that content.

Jim, with respect....
Are ANY of these questions and answers in quotes above correct to your knowledge?

So PEP is claiming that the audience is assuming the KJ is working for PEP because he/she is using SC songs night after night? So the audience must also perceive that the KJ works for Zoom, Pioneer, Music Maestro, Sunfly etc. etc. etc.? Sorry, but that sounds so ridiculous and it looks like the courts are also seeing it that way too. And believe me there is NO consumer confusion. I have asked my singers an open ended question of "who do they think I work for?" Every person said "you of course, that's a silly question." So you see there is no confusion whatsoever.

don't you mean "when they haven't paid for permission to use the content that they paid for"?

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

So somehow the consumer is more apt to be confused about who the host works for if the content wasn't paid for? But if the content was properly paid for, then the consumer somehow knows the host does NOT work for PEP? What kind of magic is this? Do you confuse apples with oranges often?

Yeah and to really add to the PARANOIA, apparently, there is ONLY consumer confusion when "dozens of SC songs" are used, night after night, while largely excluding other brands.

So, I would think that, conversely, if other brands were not "Largely excluded," there wouldn't be confusion when "dozens of SC songs" are used.

Thanks for the litmus test. Should be very convincing in court. LMMFAO

Not "working for PEP."

"Is sponsored by, affiliated with, or approved by PEP."

To anybody that would be confused such BS: I have a ranch for sale at a really great price in Nebraska