Karaoke Forums

Nail hard drive sellers and buyers!

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Is it really ridding the industry of a scourge, or is it merely another means by which someone is trying to line their pockets?

Hard drive sellers/buyers are what almost everyone here has been whining about for years - now it's being questioned when it actually is happening?

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

WABBIT THEASON!!!!PIE-WIT THEASON!!!

There are some people who go through their entire lives looking to find fault with everything, and will offer their opinions based on absurd ignorance and stupidity. These folks or as some would call them "haters", have rendered themselves irrelevant and i wouldn't waste a precious second of my time responding to them, although I do sincerely pity them.

I just think there is a difference between home user abusers and pirate hosts. After all to most working hosts the pirates pose a threat to their business, they have spent a long time building up. The home user is not in direct competition with commercial KJ hosts. If it is so easy to go after home users of hard drives, then why hasn't it been done before? It would seem that PEP would have done it, other than target venues, and the illegal hosts that work for them. If the venues are the deep pockets, then I don't see where restitution can be made? If going after venues and hosts that perform out in the public is so difficult, costly and time consuming, I really don't see how it will work going after the home users. I don't believe that Jim H, or PEP would pass up any opportunity if there was a remote chance, they could make a buck. Just my take of course.

It warmed my heart to see the original post, not that it's likely making me happy was the OP's intention. I hope it's true, and I hope we see more of it. I wish these kinds of suits had started sooner and were pressed far more often. All our businesses would have been better off if this type of litigation had always been more frequent.

Yes, the OP's story smells fishy, but the kernel of truth may be that he did buy the drive for more than casual home use, and that part of the story is just sugar-coating, by way of garnering sympathy for some free legal advice. (And if he's a pirate being sued, he certainly does need legal advise. If he didn't want to pay for his library, at least he's being consistent if he wants his legal advice for free as well!) A home user who wants to practice some songs could easily download illegal copies of those songs for free -- or just stream them on freakin' Youtube.

Like Bastiat said, you (or Stellar, or SC) can find out who bought a drive without knowing what they bought it for. That's no reason to ignore the infringement. You can't just ask somebody if they bought an illegal drive for home use only -- what do you think a pirate would answer if that's all it took to get off the hook? If you find out through discovery the drive wasn't in commercial use, then you could drop the charges or lower the requested damages.

Remember the first Napster-related lawsuits and all the publicity they got? Like the mother who was sued for thousands because her kid had downloaded ONE song? That got peoples attention. If the OP is just a home user, just a Small Fish to go after, it does some good even if it just makes one Big Fish wake up and start paying attention. We'd all have been better off if there'd been more of this early on.

Why anyone here would be mad at Stellar over this just blows my mind. It was an illegal hard drive, the thing we hate the most! Copyright infringement is bad, and compensation is just.

I understand why most of us have no love of PEP, because of their sinister business model and persecution of the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Had they gone after copyright infringement like this instead, and only after copyright infringement, then they'd deserve to still be in our good graces. They didn't, they aren't, and that's that.

But Stellar is doing the right thing for the right reasons, and more power to 'em!

Don't get me wrong EP if they can make a dent piracy more power to them. I just want to be sure it is a real recovery process by stellar, and not some type of PEP dog and pony show. One thing I don't know is if the material in question is still current and can be sued over, or has it fallen into the free ware zone like so many discontinued brands? I thought part of the reason for bringing a suit was to establish the pirate profited by selling the hard drive? It can be said that the hard drive seller made money of the transaction, but where did the home user take the hard drive and generate income?

Something definitely smells fishy with this whole thing. How come the OP has not been back?

_________________
Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

if someone is actually going after the HDD sellers like we have been asking for years....GO FOR IT!!!!
they deserve whatever they get.
i disagree with avoiding the home users though, i do not find them innocent and harmless.
go to any Vet organization and say you are looking for a certain song and 20 people will come up and offer to give you a copy off their legal 200,000 song hard drive for free. this is why companies went out of business.
they lost one sale from host "X", but they lost 10 sales from the singers of host "X".
the home users are the biggest threat to this industry, they steal many times more than hosts do.

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

I fully support going after HDD sellers and buyers. I also believe that many buyers are not informed when they buy. Ignorance is no excuse. This IS the proper way to go about the process of ridding the market of some of those pirated drives, hands down and with no exception. Anyone that finds fault with this IS a pirate sympathizer. This IS the way to identify ignorant buyers and educate them that they did something wrong. Seeking legal counsel is the only next step after they have done some research here to confirm they have messed up. I do not think that educating an illegal hard drive buyer is being sympathetic to their cause. It would be best if we could educate ALL possible buyers prior to purchase but so far that has not been realistic.

A new user navigating the site like a pro does not mean the user isn't new here. Navigating other forums would prove to be very beneficial here. Someone who does any research at all on pirated karaoke drives would certainly find this site very easily. Who actually thinks people search to see if a product is legal or not prior to buying? No one! You see a tee shirt seller outside a football game and no one stops and asks if the tee shirts are legal or not. People assume because the vendor is active, they are legal. The same goes for those drives. It isn't right that a vendor sells a bunch of illegal shirts before being shut down and it isn't right that a bunch of illegal drives are sold before being shut down.

I suggest we use this as an opportunity to educate instead of stepping on someone's head for messing up. The OP admitted they messed up. I do not think that pouring more salt in the wound will do any good and could actually harm a possible golden educational opportunity.

Really Mr. Boo anyone who finds fault this is a pirate sympathizer? I like to think of myself as pragmatic, practically speaking how is going after the home user abusers going to work? If it could have been done I'm sure the Jim H and PEP would have done it. There are so many illegal hard drives out here now, there is no way to cleanup the problem. Even if all the current hard drive sellers were targeted and shut down, and their sales lists obtained, there are still probably at least millions of illegal hard drives still out here with no paper trail. It is no trick to copy a hard drive, all it takes is an empty hard drive and a computer. People are giving them as gifts to each other and not even selling them. The genie is out of the bottle and has been for some time. Is the stellar material still viable since the company has not made any new product in sometime, or have they fallen into the freeware zone? That is the one thing that has bothered me about PEP obtaining the CB trademark. It was supposed to keep it from falling into the freeware zone. The whole purpose of making new SC was to keep it from falling into the freeware zone, wasn't it?

So Stellar should just not do anything because a bunch of those drives have been copied and there is no paper trail? That's just plain crazy. So a list of buyers is turned over in discovery. How is someone like Stellar suppose to know who is a KJ and who is a home user by simply looking at the list? Does it really matter if it's a KJ or a home user? Using pirated material is a crime whether it is a KJ or home user. I'll not attempt to decide how one should be processed versus the other. Maybe it is different, maybe it is not and my guess is it would be a case by case decision but discovery would have to be performed to know how to proceed.

Please, show at least a little common sense LR.

So, someone buys a HD known to have Karaoke music on that HD. (You could tell by the listing)

Somehow, Stellar goes through discovery and FORCES EBAY to give up PRIVATE INFORMATION and, OK, finds out who bought the "Karaoke" HD.

Next question in Discovery from Stellar, "Does the HD, in question, contain Stellar Karaoke Music?"
Side-thought: What? Stellar filed a Lawsuit without actual KNOWLEDGE that Stellar Karaoke was on the purchased HD? And...AND, the listing had a DISCLAIMER that advertised BRAND names may or may not be included? (Which someone would be a FOOL to buy without this Disclaimer)(So now, I just showed a potential EBAY Seller how to protect their BUYERS...thanks for bringing up this topic so PIRATES may HONE their skills.)

Defendant's Answer, "NO. Yep, it turned out that, as the disclaimer stated, and I paraphrase, "May or May Not include some Brands," was SPOT on. You can imagine my joy upon viewing the content of the HD and found there was NO Stellar Karaoke." (By saying that one was relieved discounts the accusers expectation that just the idea that one might receive Stellar Karaoke would be enough to gain a favorable lawsuit. But, this Defendant states that was NEVER the intention in the first place. Ummm...NO INTENT)

LMMFAO (These answers could apply to ANY BRAND/Multiple Brands) Again, LMMFAO

Next question to Stellar from the "Accused," "When are YOU (Stellar) going to pay the JUDGE authorized COUNTER SUIT that says YOU need to pay for my time and Lawyer Costs?"

LMMFAO!

You people with these Lawsuits...what a JOKE. Laughing so hard I think I soiled myself.

Common sense tells me that PEP tried for years to do something about piracy, and very little was accomplished. If you look at the example of PEP, which Stellar should have done before they started trying their own corporate recovery process. If recovery is such an easy process then why didn't PEP succeed? For the same reason PEP failed Stellar will also fail unless they have some secret sauce known only to them. The reason Jim H said they didn't go after the home user abuser was it was too hard a target. They went for the deep pockets since recovery is an expensive process, and still they couldn't make it work. Also Stellar has waited quite along time if they are going to get into the recovery business. Making their recovery process all the more difficult. We are ourselves getting all worked up about a program, with little information provided about it.

WHAT IF THE DEFENDANT JUST told the judge that the hard drive arrived dead
on arrival and he just threw it away in the trash and he wrote it off as a loss?

There's Still the Record of the Purchase,
The Proofs in the Pudding! and Never,
Ever.... Insult the Judge's intelligence.

There is NO collusion. .

_________________
Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Common sense has failed you once again. Don't listen to your common sense. It has issues. PEP never tried to do anything about piracy. They attempted to recoup loses from piracy. There is a huge difference. Anyone that thought the practice of attempting to recoup loses from piracy would ever stop it is in for some major disappointment. The best you could hope for is to curb it or make it more difficult. To date, PEP's methods have probably helped feed piracy instead of curb it.

No one with any integrity ever faulted PEP for attempting to recoup piracy loses. It was their methods that caused such a stink. "Go after the disc sellers" we said. "That's the way to do it!", we said. Now it appears someone is and people are still trying to throw rotten eggs on it too.

I don't know what sort of practices Stellar will use. But I do know that going after people who sell and purchase drives is the only way to me that makes any sense. I would like to think they learned a few things of what to do and what not to do from PEP's flailing about. We shall see but I will give them the benefit of the doubt.

It's not just the right thing to do. It's the only thing to do.

I don't think some of you are seeing the big picture here. By going after sellers, and going after buyers (especially home users), the free for all landscape changes. It would especially change if the ads used were deemed to be deceptive and unknowing buyers were able to hit the sellers from their side as well. I could certainly see that as an avenue to changing the landscape and making it much more difficult for sellers.

Whether it succeeds or fails is a moot point with me. I have been retired now for quite awhile, and I'm coming up on my 73rd birthday here pretty quick. As far as I'm concerned the train has left the station, my dog is no longer in the fight, so why should I get worked up? Recovery attempts did not effect my business when I was an active host, and now even less, since I do a job or party once in awhile. When the fight has passed you by, there is little reason to keep sharping your sword, you are not going to use it anyway. I just don't see any one manu making a significant dent in the problem. It's up to Stellar to prove my conclusion wrong.