Karaoke Forums

Just was on Pep.rocks, and found out that SC certification is now $250. That is ridiculous. That will REALLY prohibit me from doing an audit. For my that would be $6.58 per disc. It should be $50 like the Chartbuster registration, and just as simple. $250 for a Skype interview is REALLY ridiculous. Oh well. Guess I will keep my 38 SC discs home, in there case.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Smoothedge69... Get off your HIGH HORSE and cut the BS already!!!



James Harrington has publicly offered you a FREE AUDIT on MORE THAN ONE occasion.

OK, I've been on the fence with this for a while.

In KJs case such as Smooths, a lower priced audit should be available (Not JUST to Smooth)

BUT, as most KJs who are actively using Sound Choice Product (Legally), they most likely have accumulated far more CDs, and that whole process takes time.

Like ChartBuster, if the auditor in the future goes over a certain number of CDs, they would be subject to paying the balance. That's fair in my opinion.

And while they don't have any product out yet, maybe a 5-10 credit voucher might get people to register if they haven't done so already... call it a thank you for doing the right thing by PEP.

IMO, the auditor should get paid a going rate for their services, but certification should not be viewed as a significant profit center for SC, especially when this was NEVER part of the deal for most of us.

If an audit takes an hour, and the going rate for an auditor is $50 an hour, charge $50 or MAYBE $75. The auditor gets paid market rate for their time and services, SC takes a small cut. The way it seems to be structured now, the auditor gets paid for their services and SC is turning certification into a viable, significant revenue stream. Just because you CAN doesn't always mean you SHOULD. We all know that the law has not yet caught up to the realities of the industry, and just because there are grey areas that can be exploited doesn't mean there should be a gold rush taking advantage of it until it is fixed. But inevitably....

I have no issues whatsoever with disclosing certification and media shifting policies prominently in an insert in discs sold as of XX production date, but I've always hated that SC basically sold me a product then came back YEARS later and decided I owed them more money. It was never part of the original deal, and I've always felt they should have grandfathered in discs in circulation before the established policy date. Again, just because you CAN doesn't always mean you SHOULD. It makes established customers feel really betrayed, and I think time will show that a significant % of their customer base gave up on them right then and there. I know I did. I have about 280 SC discs, but can't remember the last time I bought one. Why would you buy a product from a company that just might then track you down and sue you for using that product? That's a pretty F'd up supplier/end user business relationship.

I know, I know...media shifting, copyright law...blah blah blah. Regardless of the law, it still feels like a betrayal, and just does not align with common sense. No one was disclosing the law when most of us bought these, MOST of the KJs bought these discs in good faith and have never pirated a single track, just used technology to make their job easier, and the SC policies do nothing to curb piracy, they are pretty clearly designed to profit off of piracy. More pirates, more profit, and that seems to be the underlying truth. It all just all "feels" like ethics are not the intention of the policies, profits are.

I know SC has to "recoup" pirate losses. So do that, then get back to the business of selling karaoke music as your main revenue stream, not suing your customers for innocent ignorance of a extremely fuzzy, ever evolving law. If selling music is no longer a viable business, well maybe time to either innovate or change businesses. I guess the sad thing is that they did already innovate and change businesses, and make their money these days off strong arming customers under the threat of lawsuits.

Rant over. Sorry. I know it's all been said before.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

It says it on every CD...

That being said, only PEP had the genius idea to turn that statement on legitimate KJs

Yup, it's unfortunate that the most plentiful and easiest targets are the legitimate KJs. The "ethical" thing to do would be to figure out a way to curb the piracy, not go after your customer base.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

We don't make money on certifications. We actually technically lose money, even at $250.

Audits normally take around 3 hours. But prepping for the audit takes additional time. Then there's the cost of software to scan and do remote review. On top of that, the disc marking ink is extremely expensive, plus it has to be shipped to the applicant and back to us.

And all of this is for the KJ's benefit. The original deal was that we sell you the discs and you use the discs. You want to change the deal, and it's fine to want that, but this is how we make that happen.

They got my friend... They such a pirates that they own... oh I don't know 2 to 3 thousand CDs between karaoke and music. As for the digital stuff, they used Amazon and iTunes, etc. because, you know.. they are pirates and all. And for whats it's worth, they used Tricerasoft and other legal download sites for karaoke.

As a pirate, they put their name on every request slip, songbook, etc. as well as links to their Facebook page, and always have business cards on display. Because that makes it so easy to slip away as a pirate.

So now the family pays for the settlement. They were to tired to deal with it, so they settled. We've been kicking in money from tip cup collections to help them out. All the "help" I've heard talked about here never materialized when they were audited and showed of some 500-600 Sound Choice CDs. I fully admit they were wrong on media shifting, but they are a single operator with one rig, because unless they cloned my friend, they only had a few cover people to help out of they went on vacation or something.

Because you know... all that just reeks of pirate.

Having 500 SC CDs, or 1000, will not help you if you (a) wait to get sued instead of getting permission first and (b) aren't within 2% of being 1:1 when we audit you after we sue you, or you alter your system to make it look like you were 1:1 when you were sued.

So yes, that does reek of piracy.

Jim, I definitely don't disagree with the legal rights of PEP to do what they do, and I know that there probably wouldn't be a SC if you didn't, so it's all about self-preservation of your business, so can't blame you there. I might do the same in the same situation. It's the hand you've been dealt, and you're playing to win.

I think my main rub is that the law is still not as clear as it should be, and certainly barely enforceable. There is no "KJ Association" lobbying for KJ rights on the federal, state or local level, or else the first thing they'd fight for would be clarification of these laws. I would even be for clarification of the laws to the manufacturer/producer's benefit, as long as they were crystal clear and (another pipe dream) enforced.

It just sucks that the only place where these legal issues are being contested is in court, and no change of the laws or enforcement is coming from it. It's PRIMARILY a battle between the KJs who bought these discs in good faith and the manufacturers/producers. I think we all agree that if we could snap our fingers and do all of this correctly, there would be strong laws and enforcement against PIRACY, KJs could freely media shift without consequence or licencing, and the manufacturers could go back to actually making most of their money off creating and selling great karaoke tracks.

We're in a limbo where it's sh**y for legitimate KJs, it's sh**y for manufacturers/producers, and the only one making out seem to be the friggin pirate producers and most of the pirate KJs. They are the LEAST affected by all of this mess. It's a battle of the good guys against the other good guys, and the bad guys are rarely bothered.

THAT is what really pi**es everyone off.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I'll go with (a) only because this person was one of the BIGGEST anti-pirating people I know. They would literally bring people to the karaoke store with them to encourage a relationship with the brick and mortar store they bought stuff from and show them how easy it was to be legal. They were PISSED when every line they used was lost because companies dropped lines over piracy.

Yup, they reek pirate, but you know them so well right?

As for (a) you had such a great advertising campaign to let karaoke people know you were suing them... Because HAD you made an effort to reach out in any form other then your website, maybe someone might know what you were up to.

We used to be on Sound Choices website when you had a forum area, it's how I met them. I was on it so much they even made an emoji (::tm::) for me . I didn't get ONE notice about this policy in my email box about your policy, and I've had my email for some 20 years. (For you yungin's: I had a 300 baud modem and dreamed of a 1200 baud one because it was fast!, The struggle was real...look it up!)

This is why I hold your feet to the fire about CB, because if its anything like the past, No one will hear about it... and for the record... I should get that CB email off of 3 different servers. Any PEP extension have been flagged to stay out of my junk box.

But what do I know... right? I'm just one of the sheep to be fleeced. And sadly if you did the right thing, I'd willing let you

Yup the legit people who have supported the industry are the targets. Because those people are easier to find.

I've seen so many comments on here about KJs who had reported pirates, only to see them still working in their area. I had a few myself that I reported, but like the others, they are still around.

So whats a legal KJ going to do? pay the bills and hope they don't change the rules.

I have no idea who you're talking about, and you refuse to tell me, so I guess we're at loggerheads over that.

But I do know what our policy is.

Every last one of our CDG discs has instructions, right there on the face, warning the user that unauthorized duplication is against the law. That same legend appears on the CD case insert and is visible from the outside of the packaging. In later years, we started adding a special slip inside the package, warning people against copying.

If you ignore all those warnings and we sue you, we STILL give you the option of getting out of the suit IF you can show that you were within 2% of 1:1 correspondence when we sued you. But if you monkey around with the hard drive to try to appear 1:1 when you weren't, we're going to take that to the judge instead, and it is very likely to be much, much worse than if you hadn't done anything to the hard drive.

So I can only conclude that your friend either wasn't within 2% of 1:1 when audited, or tampered with the hard drive. Unless and until you can give me an identity to work with, that's the best I can do. I don't expect you to do that, because it would likely lead to a resolution of the issue one way or the other, and you'd lose the ability to complain about it.



You mean, stamping a warning on every copy of every disc wasn't enough warning?

Or the thousands of letters we wrote to KJs, for years before we ever sued anybody?

Or the tens of thousands of email messages we sent out?

What about the Safe Harbor literature that we've been mailing out to venues and KJs for 5 or 6 years?

Or the various KJ forum websites we've posted on?

Or how about they be responsible for having the basic situational awareness of knowing what the law is when you're in a supposedly professional business?

I disagree that the law is somehow unclear. I've given dozens of examples that explain why media-shifting for commercial purposes without permission is infringement. The thing that makes it "unclear" is that you want to be able to do something without permission that the law says you need permission to do. It's really pretty clear.

I also disagree that the bad guys are rarely bothered. We've put hundreds of them out of business. (Whether that counts as "bothered" is up for debate, because a lot of them had essentially nothing invested in their KJ "business," so having to drop it wasn't that big a deal. But we'll get what we can get out of that.) We've forced hundreds more to pay for the music they're using, at rates that far outstrip what it would have cost them to be legal in the first place. I can't force people to care about themselves.

But do you want to know what the biggest obstacle has been to us in going after pirate KJs?

It hasn't been finding pirates, or succeeding in court when we do.

It's mostly been the efforts of the "good people" you're talking about, demanding that we have no right to do what the law clearly says we do, fighting against us instead of going along so we can concentrate on the "bad guys."

Bobby's original post in this thread is a good example. I've offered on several occasions to arrange for him to have a free audit. He'd then have the permission he needs to play the content of his SC discs—and any others he happens to acquire in the future—from a hard drive plus getting listed on our website as certified. It's not about the money. Now, I will say that he is definitely handling this like a true good guy; he has his principles, and he's willing to stand on them by not playing his SC discs at all, and that's fine. But the point is that we do everything we reasonably can to get the good guys into our programs. If the fee is a problem, we may offer a fee reduction, a staggered payment schedule, or even a free audit. When people cooperate with us on certification, we make sure they get taken care of.

You said, "It's PRIMARILY a battle between the KJs who bought these discs in good faith and the manufacturers/producers. I think we all agree that if we could snap our fingers and do all of this correctly, there would be strong laws and enforcement against PIRACY, KJs could freely media shift without consequence or licencing, and the manufacturers could go back to actually making most of their money off creating and selling great karaoke tracks."

Here's the problem with what you're suggesting: We have no way to conduct enforcement against actual piracy in an environment where KJs can freely media-shift without consequence or licensing. The reason is simple: We have no way of determining in advance what discs an operator might have, and we have no reliable way of getting that information.

One of the ways we're working on getting that information with regard to the Chartbuster brand is this registration program. You can see what sort of pushback we're getting from that, and we've literally stripped the requirements to the bare bones—just tell us what you have, and we'll take your word for it. And the response from the "good guys" has been HOW DARE YOU! WE DON'T HAVE TO TELL YOU ANYTHING! And that's right. But it makes a lot of people's complaints about the certification program ring very hollow. (We have had good participation from some people who had complained about SC certification, and we're grateful for that.)

Now, we're still evaluating that program. I would very much like to extend it to the Sound Choice brand, but that has zero chance of happening unless I can show that the response on the Chartbuster side has been effective. We are still early in the process on Chartbuster, so I still have hope that it will work.

From the beginning of my participation on this board, I've had a standing offer to anyone who's willing: Show me a way to separate the "technical infringers" (the people who have true 1:1 correspondence but just failed to get permission) from the pirates that meets all our requirements, and I'll gladly implement it. And in all that time, I've never had one single person take me up on it. Give me something more than a wish, and I'll be happy to make it happen.

Yeah I can't tell you because last thing I want to do is add more misery on this family because I know everything that went on, from day two to the settlement, and the details within. Because I don't trust PEP with any details, we will be forever at odds over it.

Also I don't complain when I think your in the right, or when I feel your right about something. I changed my tune over your CB trade dress buy to reluctant acceptance. I don't like it, but now that its policy, what is there to do but pay it and be on my way. Believe it or not, when you are the face of your company on a forum, that's what you get: The problems people have with things PEP does.

And again, I will ask you what other forums? I'd LOVE to see some people who praise you, it might change my opinion... why is so hard to get me (us) something positive. I've also said I'd shut up about your phantom new songs that people can actually spend their advance credits on. But as PEP does't want to take a loss/risk, I will keep complaining about it. Right now I agree with Staley, its a $350 per rig "no interest loan" with a bunch of promises attached to it. When/if it happens I might line up for at the least the songs. Shock, I still am interested in giving you my money!

I also said they were guilty of media shifting, but your the ones who said you work with people. I will believe that the Pope is Jewish before I would say this person was illegal. And because I (and others in our area) believe this person fully was on the right side of things, people are helping the family. I doubt that they would do this is the person in question was a less then who they were.

So as for my friend, I will defend and complain about them when their character is called into question. Always and forever.

And nope on all counts save the stamped CDs/inserts. You had my address for a while now, I bought some custom CDs back in the day when you made them at $75/each. You know, the ones that actually require a shipping address so I could GET the product? I called up when I was having problems with MediaCloq CDs and bought the exchanges that were available, used the same address there too. I must of not made the Mail or eMail cut then, can you tell me that dealing with Sound Choice directly didn't result in me getting ANY information?

As for awareness, no I don't keep track of every law that deals with my business every day. I have an accountant for the money stuff, and the lawyer for the legal stuff, etc. I get my news flashes/press releases when they are known and I make changes based on what my Accountant/lawyer says. Or do I now need a degree in IP Law to host karaoke? I guess maybe you should ask that during your auditions to make sure the KJs you hire are fully aware of policy.

But that fact or those same rules never seemed to stop SC did it? Or even when they converted to PEP to make a feeble attempt at skirting another copyright lawsuit. It's this kind of double-standard of telling KJ's "You shouldn't do this... but don't look at us because we did it long before you."

Forcing pirates to pay is simply converting them to continue as competitive customers. If you wanted to keep happy and loyal customers -- that pay for product up front -- you should have taken the pirates money and shut them down. But that would have been far too fair.

You are the one preventing any kind of auditing... not Bobby. You won't do it without a contract and a fee and marking his discs. That's not acceptable with him. He doesn't have a problem proving to you that he owns discs, so don't make it HIS fault because he's not adding the conditions -you are.

That sounds like YOUR problem, not mine. If SC would have kept detailed sales records of exactly who purchased what products, they'd already know wouldn't they? But they didn't... they sold to the general public and now, years later, want the courts to do what they no longer can. Again, SC's problem not ours.

You've already admitted yourself that the purpose of this "registration" is so that you don't spend $400 to file a suit against someone who has a hard drive. Because, once again, you have no sales records of who bought what because it was sold to the general public.... This is again your problem. KJ's don't want to spend another damn dime "helping your lawsuits" no matter what the reason. You've trashed that relationship long ago.

Start holding your breath and have a much "hope" as you can muster.

In other words, "solve the problem that SC created to start with for you."

Yeah, good luck with that.

I suppose you'll keep lying about this until there are consequences.

SC has consistently followed the law and the procedures established by its upstream licensors for the entire time it has been in existence. There are have been business disagreements from time to time, and we have always resolved them to the satisfaction of those licensors. The fact that there have been suits does not mean there was any wrongdoing, period. There have been ZERO judgments and ZERO injunctions.

PEP was formed for reasons that had nothing to do with that lawsuit. We formed PEP openly and publicly; we announced its existence when it became operational. We made no attempt whatsoever to prevent PEP from being drawn into the suit in question. The ONLY person who has ever suggested that PEP was formed to "skirt a lawsuit" is you. Not even the attorneys for Sony suggested otherwise.

And what exactly is the alleged lie? And be specific about it because I don't appreciate your threats.

"Business disagreements?" Is that what you're calling it now? Interesting that you don't call your trademark lawsuits against pirates as "business disagreements" but "theft", "infringement", "stealing", "robbing money out of your pocket" etc. but you want to rename the copyright lawsuits against SC as as though they are innocuous little disagreements? Your last "disagreement" lasted 2 AND A HALF YEARS in federal court, or have you already forgotten?

"zero judgments" doesn't mean there wasn't anything going on that didn't violate someone's rights, so you can't quit harping on that kind of distraction anytime. The fact that each one was settled - before the court was forced to make a judgment speaks volumes.

A case in point would be Red Peters. How would you explain that one? That wasn't a "disagreement" but a "discovery" that for 3 years, SC had produced, promoted, packaged, distributed, sold and collected money for every disc that contained his intellectual property and SC didn't license it. That's not a "disagreement" unless you think that SC just "disagreed to pay any royalties for licensing" and forgot to tell Red Peters about it.

Since you make a living on "technicalities," then yes, you could say that "technically," there have been "zero judgments." Because SC didn't want a judgment by a court. Just because there was no judgment handed down by a court doesn't automatically absolve SC from wrongdoing either. There is a reason that defendants want to settle before the court is positioned to spell out the law. Especially when the defendant is writing a hefty check to "resolve the differences to the satisfaction of those publishers."

According to you, if a manufacturer commits an infringement, it's a "business disagreement that gets resolved" but if a KJ does the same thing, it's not a "disagreement" is it? No way, it's "theft, stealing, illegal, infringement and they get "punished."

A duck is a duck. Even when it's your duck.

here we go again with the technicalities: Sure you formed PEP "openly and publicly"; Yeah, right... but can you point to the document filed with the court that detailed that the defendant Slep-Tone had voluntarily dissolved and assets transferred while there was still an active suit in progress?

Didn't think so. As far as the attorneys for Sony suggesting anything, I'll check my pacer records and get back to you.... I do know that the complaint was amended. But you certainly can't claim that an injunction wasn't on the table for the court to consider: So yes, a "settlement" does "skirt the court" from making a judgment because unless there is a settlement, the conclusion is ultimately the judgment handed down by the court.

But I don't understand if SC had "consistently followed the law and the procedures established by its upstream licensors for the entire time it has been in existence" then there wouldn't be any business disagreements that a court judgment couldn't clarify with a judgment. Unless you felt it would NOT be in your favor.

the same warning that was on every other disc for karaoke and music but the industry allowed to be copied?

never seen one of these


never seen one of these


not one venue i know of has seen this. 99% only know of the suits because a friendly bar owner got sued.

you mean besides tis one? even the SC forum had nothing about it.

and followed the laws as the other 99.99% of the industry allowed us to do.

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

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