Karaoke Forums

I've seen people bring this up before, but I never thought I'd see it. My wife and I went back to my hometown a few weeks ago for my class reunion. We decided to do some karaoke the night before and we found a little bar that had karaoke. We went in and I could see they had SC songs on the screen. I was pretty happy because all the bars where we live have dropped the brand out of fear of getting sued.

As we sat there taking in the crowd and deciding what to sing, something didn't look right as each song was cued up...and then I realized...all the SC Logos were gone! The title screen was still there, but no logo. No logos in the middle of the song or at the end either.

Given the amount of SC being sung that night, they had a TON (if not all) of the SC library - all with the logos gone.

I can't imagine how long that must have taken, much less that it amazes me how far people will go to not pay for the songs.

not sure how the legality of it plays in, but it was really weird to see.

I personally don't feel like it will help them. Removing the logo from a trademarked product is just extra proof that they willfully infringed.

And as you just pointed out, the SC tracks are very easily recognized.

i guess the sticky point would how would soundchoice/PEP justify being able to look at the drive to prove it was their tracks the logo was removed from.


Well i'm sure Jim will have more of an idea than i do

...I agree, it has been brought up before. At one time, I believe HarringtonLaw stated there was a way to detect the music even if the Trademarks were removed and the color of the Screen Lyrics were changed. Have no idea if anyone has been caught with these but I do know it's an illegal act.

Remember the cases are based on trademark infringement not copyright infringement. No trademark might make trademark infringement a tougher case to prove.

Are you guys familiar with the Houseparty Karaoke brand? Or ***** brand (5 star ?) The "trade dress" is a dead ringer for Sound Choice on both of those brands and there are probably others.

Unless the user has gone to the trouble of replacing all of the graphical elements, rather than just removing the logos, we still sue over this sort of thing on the trade dress theory. If we suspect that a user is overlaying a different graphics package on a track in which we own the sound recording copyright--something we have the means to detect, if prompted to do so--we would bring a copyright infringement action against that user.

Thankfully this sort of thing is rare, probably because it requires more effort than it's worth in comparison to compliance costs.

I'm curious Mr. Harrington - is it legal for the House Party and ***** brands to have the same trade dress as Sound Choice?

The color schemes are a tad different but I think ***** uses orange letters on blue background - a scheme I've seen on Sound Choice's Performers Choice series.

I don't have information on those exact brands, and can't get it at the moment. But SC did make some karaoke discs that were released by other companies under their own labels, mostly directed at the home market. Obviously if SC made the underlying track, any similarities of trade dress would be OK.

If they copied our trade dress without permission, that would not be OK, and we would sue over it if there are recent releases.

I would love to know which companies Sound Choice made those for. I was quite impressed with both of those brands I mentioned.

The only one i know about was either Vocopro or Singing Machine.. I forget which. I saw one of the promitional discs for sale on ebay the other day.

I have a couple of Singing Machine discs - not bad but not SC quality. Never seen a Voco Pro disc.

There is a fingerprint on each track and they appear to be different on each CDG even if it is the same CDG and same set of songs, such as two different SC7501s. I happen to have two of several CDGs and this holds true to all. The fingerprints are CRC bits. There are 8 bits in hexadecimal. There is a group assigned to the audio and a separate group assigned to the graphic. They do differ. Such as one SC7501 track 1 to the other SC7501 track 1. I believe this is how one can tell if a particular CDG/track has been pirated. If it shows up more than once among hosts, then something is rotten in Denmark. This is my humble opinion from a background with data transmission, though this works a bit differently. There is a way to view this if you have windows 8.1. I'm not sure of other OSs.
It also depends on what type of media players you may have installed. Some, like Real Player Cloud 15, disallows the file to open up fully to reveal the bits.

Don't ask me to show you how. Do not seek the treasure.

_________________
You can never argue with a crazy mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind ----B. Joel
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence ---- E.A. Poe
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity ----E.A. Poe
I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference! ----A. Einstein
Double bubble, toil and trouble ----W. Shakespeare & Walt Disney
I hate it when I get on FaceBook ----Me
Karaoke might be Groundhog Day ----?
Of All the Martial Arts, Karaoke Inflicts the Most Pain ----?

^ Are you talking about Rijndael encryption, or song watermarking?

Vocopro has SC Samplers. They show on the KJ Pro database as the VPSC series by Sound Choice.

Performer's Choice is an SC sub-label, like Star Series and Power Picks, with the Sound Choice name on the label.

_________________
"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

Why would you think encryption? No.

Do not seek the treasure any further.

_________________
You can never argue with a crazy mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind ----B. Joel
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence ---- E.A. Poe
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity ----E.A. Poe
I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference! ----A. Einstein
Double bubble, toil and trouble ----W. Shakespeare & Walt Disney
I hate it when I get on FaceBook ----Me
Karaoke might be Groundhog Day ----?
Of All the Martial Arts, Karaoke Inflicts the Most Pain ----?

Yep already knew about Performers Choice. ***** (5 star) looks just like them.