Karaoke Forums

Are you really this unaware or are you just playing stupid? Perhaps you're using the theory that says; "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bull..poop " method of explaining law. apparently you skipped over the words that were included in parentheses in my post above, so let me emphasize them for you:
And all you did was list a bunch of settlements....
EXPRESSWAY CASE WAS SETTLED - VOLUNTARY DISMISSAL. what you have conveniently omitted from the above drivel regarding Expressway is that the actual caption for the document you have pointed to should read "denying motion to dismiss counterclaim."

I'm not even going to bother researching the rest of these cases, because they are all settlements. Just because a judge denied a counterclaim, a motion for sanctions, a motion for summary judgment, a motion to tie your shoe or anything else – during the course of the case – does not necessarily mean that you would have prevailed had the case been decided by a jury. Surviving a motion is not a conclusion of all of the facts of the case. And these cases were jury demands.

I would imagine because you could not produce any cases in which the court/jury ruled it in your favor that ended case, (i.e. a "win" and not a default or settlement) I can only ascertain that you were playing stupid. An order to deny a counterclaim is in no way a final judgment in your favor – based on the law – that your trademark claim held any merit at all. It simply quantifies the points of law required and sets the ground rules before the jury trial begins. Each one of these cases were terminated with a voluntary dismissal, and none of them proves that your legal theories regarding trademark infringement are valid. You've been dragging your heels on these cases – sometimes for years – in order to drive up the legal costs of these defendants.

I understand that your definition of "win" is simply a check that you can endorse and cash at the bank. And don't give me any of your "words mean things" crap, you knew full well the intent of what I was asking for and so does everyone else. Your snide remark of moving the goalposts is another diversion, because you knew that you could not produce the proof required in the first place.

I'm not surprised that you would attempt such an underhanded diversion from the truth. However, it does prove my point nicely: like dominoes, your strategies are toppling over one by one.

At this point; I think that Chip should start using his all of his Sound Choice tracks, from a laptop, at all of his shows and wait for Jimbo to file a law suit against him so Chip can just beat him in a court room. Then there will be another district that topples another domino. It sure seems like a slam dunk win for Chip at this time in history.

I have enough oldies thanks.... but if I really wanted to play the karaoke songs which I have purchased – and paid good money for – there's certainly nothing preventing me from doing that whether I choose to use a laptop, desktop, or even a Web server with a virtual private network..

Here is the line from the poster and the operative word is "logo"....

If no one minds, I'd kinda like to go back to the original question: is going after venues a good idea?

To answer that we need to take into account that there are three distinct types of venues: those that hire KJ's, those that have legal house systems, and those that have illegal house systems.

Going after the latter is not only a good idea, it is a great one. The venue that runs on an illegal hard drive is hurting everyone here, all manufacturers and all KJ's alike. They are themselves pirates. And because they are stationary targets they should also be the easiest to go after. Let's take them out first, and then worry about the rest later.

But even that has one of the same drawbacks as going after individual pirate KJ's. Sound Choice and Chartbuster aren't the only brands they play. There's nothing to stop them from running on large illegal libraries after the Sound Choice or Chartbuster tracks have been removed or licensed. Ultimately the good guys can't win following any of the strategies used so far.

Going after venues that hire KJ's is a terrible idea. It hurts the whole industry. It frightens other venues away from having karaoke at all. These venues can never know, with total certainty, if the KJ they hire is legal or not. Because the illegal KJ will lie. (And even a PEP licensed KJ can have thousands of illegal tracks by other manufacturers.) No good can come of harassing the venues that hire mobile KJ's.

My "snide remark" was 100% accurate. When I supplied you with what you asked for, thereby making a fool of you, you conveniently decided that you must have meant something else, and I'm the idiot for not being able to tell what that was.

Here's the deal, Mr. Staley. A motion to dismiss is usually the best chance a defendant has to get out of the case. Because we get our facts straight, and because virtually everyone we sue actually did what we're doing them for, if we get past a motion to dismiss, the handwriting is on the wall and defendants usually settle. (Not always. Johnson and Golf 600 both went to judgment. Johnson was a trial, in fact. I've tried several of these cases personally.)

In the federal court system, trials are rare. And after we've beat a defendant on their best shot, chances are that defendant's going to realize that it's better to settle than fight. So we don't have to try a lot of cases.

(By the way, the Expressway case was a 12(b)(6) on our counterclaim. Expressway sued us, asking for a declaration that they did not infringe. We counterclaimed for trademark infringement. After they lost their motion to dismiss our counterclaim, we were able to work out a settlement.)

But, by all means, continue to move those goalposts.

That sounds really great on the surface, logistically however, it's a little more difficult than the simple phrase of "let's take them out."

Exactly, and even the strategies that have been used for the last six years have now become invalid.
And you are right again.

There's also nothing that will prevent the venue from hiring an illegal trivia show host to replace the legal KJ. You know, the ones that download all of the questions from someone else's site and they pirate the software to keep the score…

I think what many karaoke hosts are missing here is that "competition" in a karaoke entertainment environment really has nothing to do with the library. It really doesn't matter if every single track ever made is available at the venue. It is the skill set of the host that will determine whether any particular night will be profitable or not. and if the nights are more profitable more often then not, then you will keep the karaoke entertainment. How many times if you heard about the bar owner, or the bar manager who really cannot stand karaoke? As a form of entertainment, they hate it with a passion but they still have it a couple of nights a week because it is too profitable to stop.

It's been stated time and time again that there are many pirate hosts that simply aren't worth the time of day, and there are some that are excellent entertainers. Sadly, the majority of those pirate karaoke companies believe that there implying it value is based solely on the size of their library. Just because a karaoke host claims; "we have all the songs!" Doesn't guarantee that the patrons are going to enjoy their evening at the venue, or that they will even be entertained at all.

It's a parallax problem that many hosts can't seem to understand; they're looking at the pirate host and thinking to themselves; "they didn't buy any of that music that they're using and they didn't pay the price and sweat and toil and years of budgeting to slowly build up a library like I did." And that's true. They didn't But having a huge library does not guarantee them steady employment in this business either – everyone knows that. It all circles right back around to the skill set of the host.

It doesn't even matter if the sound system they have is junk or not. I saw one host in Ohio a few years back who ran a phenomenal show – with a single large speaker. And when I say large, I mean large; it stood almost 4 1/2 feet tall. And nothing at this show was wireless. There were two wired and very beaten up microphones attached to a cheap home stereo preamp. No real effects, no lights and I'll bet that this karaoke host did not spend over $400 for everything combined. But the house was packed, every patron in the place loved the host, and it was wall-to-wall every single karaoke night.

Our competition in this business are people – not amplifiers, speakers and certainly not libraries. I don't believe that you can paint the venues with the brush on one side that they are your source of employment and income, and then turn the brush around and say that they are hurting this business by hiring someone other than you. The key is to be the venue that everyone is talking about going to because it's fun, the service is good, the prices are not outrageous and it's clean and safe.

I certainly will not argue with you that you're the idiot, especially when you conveniently ignored the words; "no defaults, or settlements"

And conveniently changing the meaning of something to fit your current agenda seems to be your forte. Not a single one of your examples proved that the court agreed -- based on the law that your trademark infringement claim was valid. as it was demonstrated in the seventh and ninth districts, if a venue or a KJ stands their ground in federal court, your legal theory of trademark infringement doesn't hold water. It's simply not infringement.

And because playing back a track off of a laptop is not infringement, there is no longer any validity to your theory of "mediashifting" either.
Gone. Dead. Out the window and Buh-Bye. You now have no choice but to "tolerate mediashifting" from everyone because it is a completely dead concept.

the Goalposts haven't moved at all. You are still sitting in the same place, but whining that you've made it to the other end of the field while holding up a smokey mirror.
Nice try.

And I'm glad to see that you did not deny that what you produced was nothing more than an underhanded diversion. At least you are consistent.

sorry Jim, he did explicitly say "(not defaults or settlements, but actual orders)" in his challenge.
no goalposts moved.

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

What do you think an order is?

Defendant says, "Judge, this isn't a valid claim. Please dismiss it."

Court says, "Sorry, Mr. Defendant, but it is a valid claim. Ordered that your motion is denied. Case will proceed."

Defendant says, "OK, I got nothin'. Better settle."

He asked for orders. He didn't say, "Only give me cases that never settled." He said, and meant, don't refer to settlements as wins, because settlements by themselves don't have any precedential value.

When I produced exactly what he asked for, he decided that wasn't good enough because it didn't fit his narrative that we've only ever lost when cases were decided.

So, if a defendant moves to dismiss and the motion is granted, that's a los for us, but if the motion is denied, it's not a win for us? What kind of rigged set of criteria is that?

So, yes, he's moved the goalposts. He thinks we never win in court, and when I proved otherwise (listing a small fraction of our wins) he gets mad and says I misunderstood him. I didn't misunderstand him. He just didn't realize there are so many orders out there, disproving what he says. (And, on top of that, there are at least four trials where we got judgments that I didn't list.)

You just said it yourself: The case isn't terminated (ended) by the denial of a motion... it simply "proceeds." Having a comprehension problem?
Nope. Nice try. I did specifically say "no defaults, NO SETTLEMENTS" and what you provided were nothing more than settlements.
"...exactly what he asked for" were specifically defined so that there wouldn't be any confusion. You chose to weasel out of those constraints and provide the easiest thing you could do fit your own narrative ignoring those conditions completely. and now you want to whine about it because you have been called on it? How predictable.


No, it is not a win for you. If a defendant moves to dismiss the case and that motion is granted, then yes the defendant wins the case because the case is then (wait for it..., wait for it....) "terminated."

It would have been a win for you if you had filed a motion for a summary judgment and (during a bench trial) the judge had granted the motion and ruled in your favor – and terminated the case. This seems to be because you're so blinded by the idea that "a win" is any case that results in a check that you can cash. or simply because you are once again, using a cherry-picked technicality to attempt to prove a point.


If you didn't misunderstand me, then you were purposely weaseling out of what you were supposed to provide that did not include defaults and/or settlements – because you could not provide it. Perhaps we should rename you as Jimmy "the weasel" Harrington?

A perfect display of your unethical behavior as you attempt to back paddle and twist your own explanations for proofs that you fully admit you understood, but chose to ignore.

Paradigm karaoke is correct: the goalposts have never moved. You're just so far away from them it's difficult for you to see them.

"Let's see the orders where they've actually upheld your claims based on the law."

You excluded defaults and settlements because defaults are uncontested and settlements aren't orders, and orders are what matter.

When a defendant says "this isn't a valid claim based on the law" and the court says "it is a valid claim based on the law," that's entirely germane to what we were talking about. And that happened in all of the cases I cited and a couple dozen more.

I get that you can't handle the truth. But that's no reason to lie. And you're lying now... For example, you said that all of those cases were settled. They weren't all settled. Golf 600, we got summary judgment. Johnson was a trial that we won.

I "excluded defaults and settlements" from being included in YOUR response. You chose not only to ignore it, but to include them. You were fully aware of what I meant and was requesting. You're simply lying now to cover your unethical behavior... counselor.

You could not comply with the original request, after hundreds of lawsuits, 4 of the 6 cases you named were settlements.

[In my best Willie Wonka voice;] "You lose. Good day sir."

Nice try.

[Side note:] For those of you that might be thinking of licensing product from this attorney's employer: This is the guy that writes the contracts and this is the kind of behavior you too can expect. Splitting hairs and slicing and dicing every word or phrase and changing meanings to fit his own narrative and agenda. Good luck to you.

For (@$%&#!)'s sake, I didn't include settlements in my response. I cited to specific orders, which is what you asked for. Every last one of those citations is to an order upholding our claims. If you're not smart enough to understand that, not my problem.

"Hello? McFly?" You've just admitted that 4 of the 6 cases you cited ended in settlements...
That's only 2 out of 6. You are tripping over your own words.... Relax, you're you're so angry that you've been pinched, you're gonna pop a blood vessel you need..

So, when we sue you, and you move to dismiss, and we cite all these decisions in our response, what do you think the judge will say when you say, "But, Judge, they settled all those cases. They don't count"?

Another threat counselor? Really?

(A) You cannot anticipate what a judge will say even though there is an equal possibility that the judge would read your response and grant the dismissal based on a number of other factors. Even if the judge were to deny a motion to dismiss, even by your own admission, the lawsuit will proceed. It does not terminate or end the lawsuit. It is not a "win" for you. It is not much different than overruling or sustaining an objection in oral arguments.

(B) You also cannot put words in my mouth although you appear to constantly try.


But you did say; "So, when we sue you..." so I'll guess we'll have to find out.

Crickets....