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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 4:29 am 
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PEP is trying to control the entire karaoke industry by threatening to file law suits against venues who hire KJs who dare to media shift karaoke files that they bought and paid for decades ago. PEP's intimidation tactics are what is killing the karaoke industry and turning off venue owners to the idea of having any karaoke entertainment at all. If all karaoke tracks were in the public domain; PEP couldn't scare venues out of having karaoke nights in the future. PEP is doing nothing but poisoning the karaoke well in an effort to line their pockets and no one elses. Free karaoke tracks with no labels would stop PEP in their tracks. No confusion equals no law suits. They use every technicality that they can dream up in an effort to squeeze a little more money out of people who already paid for their karaoke tracks. At one time, there were dozens of karaoke manufacturers out there. There is only one of those companies that harass karaoke people on a regular basis. Free un-branded karaoke would put an end to their dastardly deeds. Rainbow karaoke has a pot of Gold at the end of the Rainbow.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 4:45 am 
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Say I wanted to stream YouTube at my venue. My venue would require payment to all four agencies (ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and Sound Exchange (For Digital Streaming)).

Once these four licenses are paid by the bar, anything from anyplace could be streamed and all royalties will be paid to by the agencies.

YouTube can be used for commercial use, but you most likely would need permission from them, and/or some sort of paid service.

Now my understanding is that as long as the owner of the content doesn't take down it's content from YouTube (In PEPs case, siting Trade Dress and Trademark reasons). It could be played legally. The removal of content is up to PEP, not YouTube. So if Karaoke Croaker changed things to look a lot less like SC, he might not have to take it down.

Without the trade dress or trademark, PEP doesn't have control over the actual music itself, that control would fall into the hands of the artists and publishers, and would be up to them to remove the music.

So in theory, you could run a night of karaoke off of the Internet via YouTube as long as you are paid up to the PROs, follow YouTube's policies or fees, and so long as you don't show a trademark owned by PEP.

Now I'm sure there is a lot of legalese that I am missing here, and some of this stuff is being fought out in courts as we speak, because streaming for the most part is relatively new to the scene (Hence SoundExchange coming into being).

I'm also not thinking it's something I want to do personally, I'd rather have my music available in case there isn't WiFi. But I'm sure there are people doing exactly this in some places legally or not.

This whole thing is very interesting.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 5:36 am 
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mrmarog wrote:
We are getting way off our antipiracy stance on this thread. Some are suggesting ways to pirate material and skirting the need to purchase it by altering the graphic file. Our argument has always been "if we own the cd/music we should be able to use it any way we want without having to pay again or fear legal prosecution".

Quote:
Free for everyone and no one could be sued for using them
Freely distributing karaoke tracks is not what the members here at KS are about.


I totally don't advocate piracy, I own every CD I use.

However PEP looks the other way, so long as you pay for a HELP Licence.

Think of it this way, as a pirate, you could own EVERY SC track ever made. You could play those tracks for years and possibly never get caught. But if you do, there is always the HELP licence to bail you out. Pay them a fee every month and they look the other way.

So a pirate who gets caught can settle, pay some damages, and become magically legal, without ever owning a single CD, all thanks to the HELP Licence.

If a pirate feels guilty, well they can just get a HELP Licence BEFORE a lawsuit hits them. They can save thousands in Lawyer fees as well as any fines incurred from a lawsuit, what a deal!

PEP also don't share that money unless an artist or publisher requests revenue from them. So PEP loves the HELP licence because its sure fire profit to keep the doors open without producing a single new track.

PEP shouldn't have a HELP Licence period. Pirates should NOT be "HELPed". Own the material, don't use the product, or get sued. End of story.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 6:21 am 
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Toastedmuffin, What PEP the is doing with the HELP license is shaky at best. That license is only for the right to display their logo and trade dress. Other IP holders are still free to sue you. We have no way of knowing if PEP distributes any of the fees to any of the other IP holders.

Discussing ways of avoiding lawsuits even if you acquire your tracks unlawfully (irc, torrents, hard drives purchase, etc.) is what I am talking about. Any one that owns the cd that the music aligns with, or purchased their music from a legal and trusted source is not a pirate in my eyes regardless of PEP's stance.

There is plenty of karaoke music that has fallen into "freeware" status and I am uncertain as to how I feel of the use of those undefended labels. DJ music has been much more feely distributed for decades with virtually no consequences. I will continue to play what I own until I am out of the business/hobby.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 6:31 am 
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I reported the posts because they were a flagrant violation of the rules. You posted a link to a pirated track, which is against the rules. Your motivation was to demonstrate how easy it is to pirate music. This isn't about me or SC. It's about your material aid to pirates.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 6:41 am 
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Karaoke Croaker wrote:
PEP is trying to control the entire karaoke industry by threatening to file law suits against venues who hire KJs who dare to media shift karaoke files that they bought and paid for decades ago.


This is just a flat-out lie.

The percentage of KJs who have 1:1 correspondence is tiny in comparison to those who don't. The wide majority of KJs don't even own a single disc.

We have been running a robust certification program for 8 years now. We charge a small fee for the audit, but we routinely waive or reduce that fee, especially when a lawsuit is being contemplated. We actively try to avoid suing people who have discs. And in 8 years, we've sued fewer than 10 KJs, out of around a thousand, who had 1:1 correspondence. When it happens, we dismiss the case.

What will it take to get you to stop lying about us?


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 7:15 am 
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mrmarog wrote:
Toastedmuffin, What PEP the is doing with the HELP license is shaky at best. That license is only for the right to display their logo and trade dress. Other IP holders are still free to sue you. We have no way of knowing if PEP distributes any of the fees to any of the other IP holders.

Discussing ways of avoiding lawsuits even if you acquire your tracks unlawfully (irc, torrents, hard drives purchase, etc.) is what I am talking about. Any one that owns the cd that the music aligns with, or purchased their music from a legal and trusted source is not a pirate in my eyes regardless of PEP's stance.

There is plenty of karaoke music that has fallen into "freeware" status and I am uncertain as to how I feel of the use of those undefended labels. DJ music has been much more feely distributed for decades with virtually no consequences. I will continue to play what I own until I am out of the business/hobby.


The problem I have with it is that it took me years to build my collection of karaoke (As well as regular music). Some karaoke CDs I was too late to the party for and had to go without, find a version from an alternate vendor, or pay an incredibly high after market fee to own that karaoke CD.

When I first started out in karaoke, I made a choice to support the business I'm in, hence buying the CDs from various companies to use at my gigs. Other people, who helped cause the mess we as KJs are all in, decided to go the illegal route.

PEP should sue pirates without question over its Sound Choice product. If they don't own the product, their collective hides should be nailed to the wall (however you want to put that in legalese). BUT there should be no middle ground for them. No CD to play, no using the product, period.

But PEP lets pirates off the hook by letting them pay to use whatever they want. And "by whatever they want" means use of the entire 16,500 reg logo tracks.

Every reg logo song ever made. Got a copy of 8125? or 8148 as a legal KJ? No? sucks to be you, but no problems if you are a HELP licencee and want to use it.

And here is what PEP says about the help licence

Quote:
HELP is designed to cover the use of trademarks in connection with a commercial karaoke business, for tracks you already possess. (In other words, we do not supply you with the tracks themselves.) Simply apply for HELP, provide us with some information about your operations, promise to meet a few quality standards and respect certain rules, and pay a monthly fee based on the number of karaoke hard drives you use that have Sound Choice-branded tracks on them.

No disc audits. No certifications. No hassles.

With your approved application, you get a license that allows you to use the Sound Choice marks on tracks stored on non-original media, no matter how many of the more than 16,500 unique "red logo"* Sound Choice tracks you have, no matter where you got them.


As an extra insult to people who bought the CDs in the first place...

Quote:
As a HELP program participant, you use the tracks you want to use, where you want to use them, in the format and on the media you choose.


So a KJ who helped the company survive by buying its CDs can be sued because they media shifted, but its OK for a pirate who pays into the program to do basically... whatever they want, so long as the check clears.

As for "Freeware"... I don't have any of it, I still buy dead labels from old dealer stock. Vendors need some love too since they are in business. It sucks there is tons of karaoke stuff out there that you can get for free. But it doesn't provide an advantage to anyone, as it's accessible to anyone who knows how to get it.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 8:24 am 
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Toastedmuffin wrote:
mrmarog wrote:
Toastedmuffin, What PEP the is doing with the HELP license is shaky at best. That license is only for the right to display their logo and trade dress. Other IP holders are still free to sue you. We have no way of knowing if PEP distributes any of the fees to any of the other IP holders.

Discussing ways of avoiding lawsuits even if you acquire your tracks unlawfully (irc, torrents, hard drives purchase, etc.) is what I am talking about. Any one that owns the cd that the music aligns with, or purchased their music from a legal and trusted source is not a pirate in my eyes regardless of PEP's stance.

There is plenty of karaoke music that has fallen into "freeware" status and I am uncertain as to how I feel of the use of those undefended labels. DJ music has been much more feely distributed for decades with virtually no consequences. I will continue to play what I own until I am out of the business/hobby.


The problem I have with it is that it took me years to build my collection of karaoke (As well as regular music). Some karaoke CDs I was too late to the party for and had to go without, find a version from an alternate vendor, or pay an incredibly high after market fee to own that karaoke CD.

When I first started out in karaoke, I made a choice to support the business I'm in, hence buying the CDs from various companies to use at my gigs. Other people, who helped cause the mess we as KJs are all in, decided to go the illegal route.

PEP should sue pirates without question over its Sound Choice product. If they don't own the product, their collective hides should be nailed to the wall (however you want to put that in legalese). BUT there should be no middle ground for them. No CD to play, no using the product, period.

But PEP lets pirates off the hook by letting them pay to use whatever they want. And "by whatever they want" means use of the entire 16,500 reg logo tracks.

Every reg logo song ever made. Got a copy of 8125? or 8148 as a legal KJ? No? sucks to be you, but no problems if you are a HELP licencee and want to use it.

And here is what PEP says about the help licence

Quote:
HELP is designed to cover the use of trademarks in connection with a commercial karaoke business, for tracks you already possess. (In other words, we do not supply you with the tracks themselves.) Simply apply for HELP, provide us with some information about your operations, promise to meet a few quality standards and respect certain rules, and pay a monthly fee based on the number of karaoke hard drives you use that have Sound Choice-branded tracks on them.

No disc audits. No certifications. No hassles.

With your approved application, you get a license that allows you to use the Sound Choice marks on tracks stored on non-original media, no matter how many of the more than 16,500 unique "red logo"* Sound Choice tracks you have, no matter where you got them.


As an extra insult to people who bought the CDs in the first place...

Quote:
As a HELP program participant, you use the tracks you want to use, where you want to use them, in the format and on the media you choose.


So a KJ who helped the company survive by buying its CDs can be sued because they media shifted, but its OK for a pirate who pays into the program to do basically... whatever they want, so long as the check clears.

As for "Freeware"... I don't have any of it, I still buy dead labels from old dealer stock. Vendors need some love too since they are in business. It sucks there is tons of karaoke stuff out there that you can get for free. But it doesn't provide an advantage to anyone, as it's accessible to anyone who knows how to get it.


Well put. The HELP 'license' is a slap squarely in the face of those that actually purchased SC discs and is now very simply a cash cow (regardless of the size of the cow) for PEP.

It's too bad (whoever PEP is paying whatever fees to, for allowing the HELP 'license' program to exist) accepts payment for what would otherwise be the unauthorized use of copyrighted music PEP doesn't even own anymore. Can't fight city hall (whoever PEP is paying their fee to), though, and PEP knows it.

_________________
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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 8:28 am 
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Toastedmuffin wrote:
So a KJ who helped the company survive by buying its CDs can be sued because they media shifted,


"Can be sued" is 100% accurate. The CDs you bought specifically carried a warning against unauthorized copying. If you copy without authorization, you can be sued for it.

But that's not the end of the story, and it's more than a little dishonest to leave it there.

The reality is that getting our permission doesn't take much at all. You can listen all you like to Mr. Staley's fearmongering about having to sign a scary contract, but here's the thing: If you are going to alter the legal relationship between two parties--and getting permission to do something we can prohibit you from doing does alter the legal relationship between us and you--then you want that to be in writing so that it's perfectly clear what's happening. It's for the protection of both parties, so that in the event of a dispute, we can refer back to something that is in writing.

We offer certification on specific terms, but, like everything, those terms are negotiable. Remember that we have one goal for our certification program: To verify that the tracks you have in use are in 1:1 correspondence with your discs. If we can be satisfied that's the case, we will negotiate a different deal.

We aren't out to screw anyone or to trick them into giving us information that we'll use to sue them. We're not interested in extracting money from the certification program--the fee we charge for the audit doesn't even cover our costs. If you come to us--before you get sued--and say, "Hey, I want to get certified," and it turns out you're not 1:1, you get a free pass on the tracks you lack. Just delete them. As long as you came to us first, rather than waiting to be sued, we don't care about tracks you don't have discs for, as long as you delete them. If you wait to be sued, however, deleting tracks is destroying evidence, and you must not do that.

If the fee is a problem--financial or philosophical--we will work with you. Our goal is verification, not money.

And, most of all, we want to work to support legitimate hosts. Our efforts with SCE are designed to support legitimate hosts, not to compete with them. We want legitimate hosts to get more gigs, to get more money for their gigs, and to grow as much as they want to grow. So PEP's focus is on getting pirates to go legit or to get them out of the business--in part, by going after the venues that hire pirates. SCE's focus is on getting work for legitimate hosts, raising fees, and offering services to venues that individual KJs, in most cases, can't provide.

Toastedmuffin wrote:
but its OK for a pirate who pays into the program to do basically... whatever they want, so long as the check clears.


And, once again, this is just not true. The HELP agreement includes a lot of restrictions, and we enforce those restrictions.

The weighted average price of a new HELP license is $318 per month. That's $3,816 per year, and over the course of 5 years of operation, it's around $20,000. And at the end of that five-year period, the operator has nothing to sell. If you're a disc collector, you could spend $6500 for the GEM series (or we'll take payments over two years that will total about $800 more), leaving $12,700 of the $20,000. You can buy individual SC discs on eBay for around $1.50 per song (being generous; there are lots of discs available for less). Even assuming some duplication, let's say you could add another 6,000 songs to your collection, for a total of 12,000. That's short of the 16,500 available with HELP, of course, but is there a material difference there? In the actual, functional world, it's likely that you would just have 4500 more songs that don't ever get sung.

(Or, did you know that we will sell GEM series licensees a HELP license as an add-on for their GEM system for just $109 per month?)

But here's the key difference: At the end of the five-year period, you've got something to sell. You can sell your GEM series license (we'll help you with that for nothing), and you can sell your discs (there's still a robust market for them). So, all things considered, you're better off with that setup. You just have to be willing to do without some things until you can buy them.

Remember, our goal is to get operators legit or out. There are way too many operators for the market, but there are way too few people who are paying for their music. HELP is a way to increase the latter.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 8:39 am 
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I have more than enough of the old labels to last me a lifetime.... literally. I know what it takes to put a large collection together because I have been at it since 1990. I purchased laser discs for my own use at home so I could practice before I went out. Then in 1994 I bought a Pioneer Laser Disc/CDG player and started buying CDG's.

I still search the internet everyday for bargains, but large collections for sale are getting hard to find. The likelihood of adding to my already large "dupe" pile is getting more likely with every purchase. I even have brand new unopened Foundation 2 and all the Bricks that I got on a bulk purchase.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 9:26 am 
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JimHarrington wrote:
Toastedmuffin wrote:
So a KJ who helped the company survive by buying its CDs can be sued because they media shifted,


"Can be sued" is 100% accurate. The CDs you bought specifically carried a warning against unauthorized copying. If you copy without authorization, you can be sued for it.

But that's not the end of the story, and it's more than a little dishonest to leave it there.

The reality is that getting our permission doesn't take much at all. You can listen all you like to Mr. Staley's fearmongering about having to sign a scary contract, but here's the thing: If you are going to alter the legal relationship between two parties--and getting permission to do something we can prohibit you from doing does alter the legal relationship between us and you--then you want that to be in writing so that it's perfectly clear what's happening. It's for the protection of both parties, so that in the event of a dispute, we can refer back to something that is in writing.

We offer certification on specific terms, but, like everything, those terms are negotiable. Remember that we have one goal for our certification program: To verify that the tracks you have in use are in 1:1 correspondence with your discs. If we can be satisfied that's the case, we will negotiate a different deal.

We aren't out to screw anyone or to trick them into giving us information that we'll use to sue them. We're not interested in extracting money from the certification program--the fee we charge for the audit doesn't even cover our costs. If you come to us--before you get sued--and say, "Hey, I want to get certified," and it turns out you're not 1:1, you get a free pass on the tracks you lack. Just delete them. As long as you came to us first, rather than waiting to be sued, we don't care about tracks you don't have discs for, as long as you delete them. If you wait to be sued, however, deleting tracks is destroying evidence, and you must not do that.

If the fee is a problem--financial or philosophical--we will work with you. Our goal is verification, not money.

And, most of all, we want to work to support legitimate hosts. Our efforts with SCE are designed to support legitimate hosts, not to compete with them. We want legitimate hosts to get more gigs, to get more money for their gigs, and to grow as much as they want to grow. So PEP's focus is on getting pirates to go legit or to get them out of the business--in part, by going after the venues that hire pirates. SCE's focus is on getting work for legitimate hosts, raising fees, and offering services to venues that individual KJs, in most cases, can't provide.

Toastedmuffin wrote:
but its OK for a pirate who pays into the program to do basically... whatever they want, so long as the check clears.


And, once again, this is just not true. The HELP agreement includes a lot of restrictions, and we enforce those restrictions.

The weighted average price of a new HELP license is $318 per month. That's $3,816 per year, and over the course of 5 years of operation, it's around $20,000. And at the end of that five-year period, the operator has nothing to sell. If you're a disc collector, you could spend $6500 for the GEM series (or we'll take payments over two years that will total about $800 more), leaving $12,700 of the $20,000. You can buy individual SC discs on eBay for around $1.50 per song (being generous; there are lots of discs available for less). Even assuming some duplication, let's say you could add another 6,000 songs to your collection, for a total of 12,000. That's short of the 16,500 available with HELP, of course, but is there a material difference there? In the actual, functional world, it's likely that you would just have 4500 more songs that don't ever get sung.

(Or, did you know that we will sell GEM series licensees a HELP license as an add-on for their GEM system for just $109 per month?)

But here's the key difference: At the end of the five-year period, you've got something to sell. You can sell your GEM series license (we'll help you with that for nothing), and you can sell your discs (there's still a robust market for them). So, all things considered, you're better off with that setup. You just have to be willing to do without some things until you can buy them.

Remember, our goal is to get operators legit or out. There are way too many operators for the market, but there are way too few people who are paying for their music. HELP is a way to increase the latter.


I take things Mr. Staley says with a grain of salt. I am immune to "fear mongering" on both sides of the fence. I have stated in the past that contracts are indeed a way of life, and so long as they don't make it do anything I don't wish to do, I have no problem signing them.

I am however, talking about people who use the Sound Choice product who never paid you a dime when it was to everyone's (including SC/PEP) benefit. We are talking about the HELP licence.

I stand firmly against your HELP program. I don't believe its helping the industry, only helping PEP and their bottom line. There should be no middle ground here. They got sued, they shouldn't have an out. PEP damages get paid, and further legal action should they continue usage.

Remember these are the very people that Sound Choice has complained about for years stealing their profits and putting them out of business. If I had such an ax to grind you better believe I wouldn't want them anywhere near my product, as that's mostly why PEP sued them in the first place.

The HELP licence doesn't protect or equalize the industry. Like I've said, if the pirate in question doesn't have a single SC (or CB) track, PEP is not under any obligation to do anything about them (and again, nothing wrong with that, those tracks are not PEPs problem to deal with). It wouldn't matter if everything else the pirate has was stolen.

As for financial penalties: Sure it might cut into a Pirates profits but using your $318 it works out to about $0.02/track/month. Or if a pirate works 8 gigs a month, $40 a night for usage. Expensive? Sure... more then other subscriptions, but not killer.

As for the re-sale stuff. There is a market for it, but only if someone is willing to buy it, some CDs are pure garbage in terms of resale value and might only be of interest to someone making a "set" (Like the Power Pick 3000 series).

If PEP feels they want to actually protect the industry over making a profit then the HELP licence should be trashed and the only way to make sure you are in compliance is to:

1) Use the original media as intended (CDs)
2) Pay for the right to media shift the CDs you own, buy doing an audit.
3) Do not use Sound Choice product! or you will get sued.

You know, the stuff PEP always says are the "legal" options.

Yes pirates aren't going to follow those rules, and that's why PEP sues them. And then those pirates shouldn't be entitled to the product afterwards.

PEP is suing people about control of their product. What better way to control it then to not let them use it unless they buy the CDs (or GEM series) like the rest of us did?


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 12:19 pm 
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I understand your position. I understand the optics from your perspective, about how it's not fair for some people, for a small fee, to get access to a product that cost you thousands of dollars.

I get that it's not fair.

Just like it was unfair that the desktop computer I took to college cost $2000, when kids today can get a much more powerful laptop for $200 or less.

There are 30,000 or more operators in the US, and 90-95% of them are pirates to some degree. There is a lot of turnover. We can't possibly sue them all. We could file new lawsuits against 4 operators every business day for the next 26 years and only cover the people who are pirates today. So HELP is a compromise. Rather than waiting to be sued, operators can step out of piracy for a reasonable price. We have tried to set the pricing in a way that balances all of the competing interests--our reasonable profit, the needs of our participating publishers, existing licensees and disc owners, and operators who want to pay for their music.

I'm sorry that you're unhappy that this program exists. But it exists to fill a need.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 1:18 pm 
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JimHarrington wrote:
I reported the posts because they were a flagrant violation of the rules. You posted a link to a pirated track, which is against the rules. Your motivation was to demonstrate how easy it is to pirate music. This isn't about me or SC. It's about your material aid to pirates.


My Neighborhood KJ owns a few thousand karaoke discs including the Beatles disc that contains the song HELP. How can editing something that he legally purchased years ago and posting it to YOUTUBE be considered Piracy? Just because you say something, doesn't make it true. He was showing people how easy it is to media shift their own property to avoid being harassed by the PEP boys. You sue people for displaying a logo and or displaying a particular "trade dress". I've only shown that some people have successfully removed those items from tracks that they legally own to avoid being harassed by you and yours. No one should have to be subjected to an audit because there are some pirates out there that have stolen your product. KJ Tom should not be under suspicion because KJ Ralph is a pirate. You treat every KJ as if they're guilty first and they have to prove to you that they're not guilty. You use the display of your logo and trade dress as an excuse to try to intimidate people into paying for the ability to media shift their property. If someone is willing to invest the time into removing those logos and trade dress to avoid your nagging; they are just doing their due diligence to protect their business from some trolling lawyer looking for easy settlements. You had the links removed because it shows just how easy it is to avoid your business model. You don't care one little bit about the KJs, like my neighbor, who bought thousands of karaoke discs over a twenty year period. You don't care how many pirates are out there as long as they pay you a monthly vig. If someone removed their logos and trade dress from all of their Sound Choice tracks; they could tell you to shove you HELP license where the sun doesn't shine and they'd never have to pay you another red cent. You try to paint every KJ with a broad piracy brush in an effort to squeeze a few more dollars out of every legal KJ as well as the illegal KJs. My friendly neighborhood Spiderman KJ has edited his tracks to avoid having any harassing law suits from disrupting his happy life. Not one person at his shows ever complains because his tracks don't say Sound Choice when they are played on the bars monitors. When people ask him which brand is the best one to sing from he just tells them that the Rainbow Karaoke brand is as good as any other brand there is; even better in some instances, when he fixes bad swipes or incorrect lyrics that were in the original track.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 1:36 pm 
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Karaoke Croaker wrote:
How can editing something that he legally purchased years ago and posting it to YOUTUBE be considered Piracy?


It's piracy in two ways.

First, when he edited the track, he created a "derivative work."

Second, when he (or you) uploaded the track to YouTube, he reproduced the track.

The right to reproduce works is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. Likewise, the right to prepare derivative works is another of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner.

In addition, by uploading the track to YouTube, he distributed the track--yet another of the exclusive rights--and encouraged its public performance (which is yet another of the exclusive rights).

In short, it's not me saying that this is piracy. It's a blatant violation of the Copyright Act.

The rest of your WHARRRGARBLLLLL about SC is irrelevant.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 1:51 pm 
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The rights holders of the tracks are paid by the advertising money that is collected by YOUTUBE and dispersed to the rights holders. If the rights holders think that it is piracy; I'm sure that they would ask the fine people at YOUTUBE to remove it. By your definition, every song that is placed on YOUTUBE is a case of piracy. I think my buddy is safe from persecution and or prosecution in this instance. You can try to create some fear if you want to but I don't think he's afraid of you. Weird Al has made a fortune from making derivative works. I don't recall him ever getting in trouble for it. You can ignore anything you'd like. It doesn't change the fact that anyone can edit their karaoke tracks and use them at their shows without the fear of them being confused with the original track; and since no other company but yours even cares about media shifting; they don't have to edit very many songs in their library. The Rainbow Karaoke Eagles tracks are amazing. I sing them at his show all of the time. He has the listed in his book as RK8125. LOL


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 2:10 pm 
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Karaoke Croaker wrote:
Weird Al has made a fortune from making derivative works. I don't recall him ever getting in trouble for it.


Actually, Weird Al (rather famously) gets a license for every parody song he records. If the songwriter refuses, he doesn't make it. Prince and Eminem are the only two to refuse--and note that he has never parodied any of their songs.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 3:09 pm 
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KIND OF LIKE WHAT SOUND CHOICE DIDN'T DO WHEN THEY PRODUCED THEIR EAGLES DISC? RIGHT? My buddy makes lots of song parodies. None of them have been removed from YOUTUBE. I guess the powers that be don't really mind all that much and since he isn't making any money on anything he puts on YOUTUBE; they have no interest in hassling him.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 4:41 pm 
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Karaoke Croaker wrote:
KIND OF LIKE WHAT SOUND CHOICE DIDN'T DO WHEN THEY PRODUCED THEIR EAGLES DISC? RIGHT?


Actually, no. We did have permission to put out that disc. After it was released, the songwriters objected, which forced the publisher to rescind the earlier permission it had granted. The terms of our blanket license required us to withdraw the unsold product, and we did. But there was no recall. And the disc itself isn't especially rare.

Funny how the things you "know" turn out not to be so.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 5:20 pm 
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THAT IS JUST YOUR SPIN ON THE STORY. The "OPTICS" to the general public is quite different. Most people in the karaoke universe believe that you got bitch-slapped by Don Henley's representatives and you had to pull the disc out of circulation. You were stopped from profiting from the disc and the irony of it all is that just about every KJ in the business has the tracks and hardly any of them paid for them. Most people also think that those tracks were the ones that your top notch investigators would look for when surveilling karaoke shows. Since very few of those discs were allowed to be sold; you freely assume that anyone that has them as digital files must have pirated them so if they're displaying the Sound Choice Marks; they must be pirates in your estimation so you threaten to sue them if they don't pay up in one form or another. Giving these karaoke tracks the rainbow effect; basically removes all of the bullets out of your law suit gun. You don't own the rights to the song and the logos are gone and the trade dress is changed. Pirates win and you lose. People root against you because you're nothing but a bully.


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PostPosted: Thu Apr 06, 2017 6:36 pm 
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I don't think some of you folks are thinking clearly. Let's look at it like this:
Pirate KJ is operating at the venue next door to yours and using every Sound Choice track he can get his hands on, paying nothing, able to undercut you to get shows.
OR, same pirate KJ using every Sound Choice track he can get his hands on, but has a HELP license from Sound Choice and now paying SC $375 per month and because of those payments, can't afford to undercut you because he now has expenses to use the music.

Are you telling me that you can't comprehend how that would be a good thing for your business?


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