Karaoke Forums

We can customize a license that will allow this--and we have, in fact, done so. Without knowing the specific identity of the venue you visited, I can't say if they have such a license. It does require special permission, but we would not have a problem with customizing the license to that kind of setup as long as there were controls that locked out the song from being played in multiple places at once.

Our guiding principle is that we won't allow anything to occur that couldn't be accomplished with the physical media. A karaoke box with all the rooms in a single location could easily share a set of discs, so we will allow that arrangement even if it's technically accomplished via other means, as long as you clear it with us.

But two locations--no, that won't work. I'm not saying we would never approve something like that, but our inclination would be to refuse it.

OK, when explained like that it would be treated in that way, it makes perfect sense to me in regards to policy.

Streaming has it's benefits, but I worry about availability and quality of the WiFi where I'm playing, so I'd rather physical media or a hard drive anyway.

While Harrington has already sued one KJ in Florida for doing exactly this with a VPN (virtual private network), now it appears that the pepsquad is desperate enough for a new revenue source to be willing to "customize a license that will allow this"....

Of course, keep in mind that any license that gets "customized" will include that pep is held harmless for this unauthorized method of distribution and (yes) including "broadcasting."

And for those of you KJ's that have a good internet connection at your venues:
There is a program you can get that will make a locked URL on the net look like an additional hard drive to your computer.

If you park your library there, your hosting computer can access it as though it's just another drive. It will take a teensy bit longer for the song to be available since it has to download it first, but with a good connection and decent speed, the wait time is negligible...

This way you wouldn't have to take the risk that some kj that works for you will copy your local hard drive through a USB port and walk away with your library.

I know that this works with Hoster, so I'm sure it will work with other programs too.

I have a KJ friend of mine who lost all of his gigs to one of his KJs who copied his hard drive and low balled all of his gigs. He'd be very interested in knowing about this hard drive in the sky thing. Any more info on that would be appreciated.

If he wants to stop that from happening in the future, BitLocker is probably a better answer than cloud storage. Any change to the setup after BitLocker is engaged (such as plugging in a USB drive to copy content) requires a password.

The employee KJ just cloned the guys external hard drive. I don't know if bitlocker would prevent that or not. I'll have to google it

I just checked out bit locker on google and if you have an employee KJ working for you; wouldn't that person already know your password to unlock the drive? It would cover you if someone stole your computer but not if the person trying to copy your drive works for you and knows the password. Yes or No?

correct, Bitlocker can not stop copying of a drive the host has access to.
this has been a big topic since it appears currently you can either be secure, or usable by a host, but not both.
the drive has to be decrypted to play the files, at that point they are copyable as well.
first one to come up with a workable solution that allows play but no copy wins a cigar.

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

Thank You Paradigm. That's what I was thinking was the case. You would think that the lawyer /programmer would know such things?

I found this on the Internet: Looks promising, but I haven't tried it yet.

http://www.ampercent.com/enable-disable ... rive/6264/

Looks like a pretty simple solution, however it should before you try it: You should make a back up copy of your registry! The article says this as well, but it's worth it to point that out here.

For the record: I'm not a fan of mucking about in the registry as your computer will throw fits if you do something slightly wrong. (Been there, done this)

Says it works up to Windows 7, But I'm guessing it will work on Window versions past that.

Do I have to mention that I am not responsible to what happens to your computer by you playing in the registry? I guess I just did.

Good point. My mistake.

The solution to this problem, I think, has to be in preventing unauthorized USB drives from mounting. If you can't plug in other media, you can't copy.

There is a product called Endpoint Protector that is designed specifically for this. I haven't used it, so I don't know whether it works, but it looks promising. The Basic product will protect a single computer for $19.


https://www.endpointprotector.com

Let's say the files are on an internal drive. Can you not set up BitLocker to only allow access through, say, the hosting program and nothing else, like File Explorer? So, they can only be decrypted by the program you set up through BitLocker, even if the drive is removed and connected to another machine? Obviously, the BitLocker program would be password protected so no changes can be made to the settings. The program would be set up so only the hosting program can access the files.

This would involve encrypting each and every file on the drive which would take some time and probably be a PITA, but what's worse? That or getting ripped off?

I got ripped off of about 20k worth of music in 2007 when a host copied my drive. I'd still love to rip his face off.

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DJ Don

They can just upload them to dropbox, could probably upload all your files during on 4-5 hour show.

There is nothing that can stop someone from removing a hard drive from a computer and installing it on another as a slave or with a sata to USB adapter. If those files were encrypted then that would slow them up.

If the files are encrypted, they're useless without the decryption key, regardless of what machine they're on. Copy away, thieves. You spent 5 hours copying useless files.

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DJ Don

OK, after some coffee and reading the article twice, I tried the method I posted above, and it seems to work nicely.

When you try to move the file to a USB drive, it states the drive is write protected and to remove the protection or use another disk.

Also worked with my 3.0 1TB external hard drive.

Seems there is no problems bringing files from the USB to your hard drive.

It was pretty easy to do, however, you might want to write down how to turn off the key so you don't forget.

Hope it helps those people who need to have a little more protection in dealing with USB devices.

Why would you even bother with "thousands of tracks?" I would agree that it would be time consuming to do that, but why? There are so few songs that were exclusive to SC that it would be useless to bother with all the rest - especially the garbage "filler songs" that they included just to fill a disc. I don't think I've ever had anyone want to sing a single iFlatts & Scruggs song . Besides, many of the suppliers have already created the popular song versions like SBI, Zoom, KV, and KSF.

Of course, if you use Harrington's same logic when it comes to the "original owner of the composition suing a KJ" then the chances of that happening is minuscule according to him. But notice the minute that it's actually demonstrated, he gets a hair up his backside like he's "going to tell on you" and somehow that will make a difference and the publisher-cops will come swooping in. (It hasn't in seven years and it won't now)

If any publisher was going to sue an individual KJ that created even a handful of tracks, that would have happened years ago when they first started leasing their oldies series. Instead, the publisher sued the one entity (PEP) that was "redistributing" hundreds of tracks without proper licensing.

OK. I finally went through all the archives for the last 4 YEARS and this is the breakdown.

12623 SC songs of which
2065 unique SC songs have been used during those 4 years.

Assumptions would be 10% of 2065 = 206.5 SC songs would be Country.
Many Country Singers, who have come to my shows, stated they preferred the STAR DISC Brand.
So, I added the SD Brand back where the Singer would have a choice between the two Brands and, of course, if a SD Brand was available, they chose SD over SC EVERY TIME, even though, alphabetically, SC would be listed FIRST and on top of the SD Brand.

Subtracting Country, 2065 - 206.5 = 1,858.5 SC songs being sung.

A few other "Preferred" Brands (DK, MM, PS, PR, etc.) have accounted for possibly dropping the total of 1858.5 by another 10% (185.85) to come to a total of 1,672.65 SC Songs.

As was stated, MANY of these songs have been replaced by:
Are 1,672.65 SC Songs really worth the $20K+ investment in Sound Choice? I am seriously thinking about pulling the SC Brand and putting them up on EBAY to try and recoup my money.

Of course another way to make money is through Class-Action lawsuits.

Because, since PEP has added Chartbusters, I'm confused as to which SERVICE they represent...especially since PEP is running Shows. Seems PEP's Karaoke would be subject to the SAME CONFUSION they claim every other KJ is causing. I mean, is PEP representing a Sound Choice Show or is PEP representing a Chartbuster show? Are they using discs or computers or discs with a computer? Or are they using discs with a PROPRIETARY player (JVC, etc.)? And, is the reproduction of SOUND from a cheap a#s JVC player capable of producing the 1000s of Sound Bits that Harrington claims a DISC is supposed to be encoded with. So, are they even following their OWN protocols of SOUND? Is anyone confused as me?

How is it piracy if the KJ has bought and paid for the original disc? The KJ wants to use something that he legally purchased and play it from his computer without worrying about some IP troll from harassing him so he edits his own personal property. How is SONY affected? I thought that Michael Jackson owned the publishing rights to the Lennon McCartney collection? As far as having to do it to thousands of songs; I don't think a KJ would have to do it to very many songs. A cagey KJ would only have to do it to songs that were exclusively on a particular brand and no other brand. There may be around a hundred songs that are exclusive to a particular brand that seems to harass KJs for media shifting their own property and out of those 100 songs; only a handful of them get sung on a regular basis at any given show. If the KJ had a regular that sang "RAIN KING" by the Counting Crows every time he came to his show; it would be one of the songs that the KJ would "EDIT" to avoid being hassled by "The Man". No Service Mark. No Trade Mark. No Confusion. No Law Suit... and thank God! NO MARKY MARK!