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That was true in the days of distributed "cracks" as the way to get at pirated medis. Nowadays, the crack is done for you; you never "crack" the media, you download copies from various places.

Repeat after me -- there are no hard-media copy protection schemes in use at this time. Nor are there likely to be any.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

They're already protected (in a backwards logic sort of way). Nobody wants to pirate the GEM discs, because all of those tracks have already been pirated on existisng SC discs (Artist Series, Spotlight series, Power Series, Foundations 1 and 2, Brick series, etc...). Who would even want to waste their time pirating the GEM series, when there's nothing on them that hasn't already been pirated.


And there you have it!

That was my POINT. Gems are not a protected media except as described by cue - the content has all been pirated previously from original production..

I have been saying all along ( and it never seems to sink in for you or anyone else) that I am NOT TALKING ABOUT DISCS. NOT discs. FORGET discs. Leave DISCS OUT OF IT.

I have been speaking of hard media that DOES offer SOME protection. It won't last, but it may possibly delay long enough to allow some money to be made in sales. As soon as a download is offered you can be sure it will almost instantly be pirated. No profit means no incentive to produce new tracks. Done. If you want to be able to acquire new tracks, the producer MUST be able to make a profit.

Time to look past personal convenience and take the long view for the sake of professional longevity.

A locked drive? A "mission impossible" card or thumb drive? I don't know.

Why people keep bringing up discs is beyond me.

By the way, I haven't called anyone names. Why do I not receive the same courtesy?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Now if only that were true of every disc ever sold. Of course 20 odd years ago creating and managing such sales records would have seemed an insurmountable IT task, even if anyone could have spotted the need for it. Today's technology would make such a tracking system possible, but the cats (Spotlights, Star Series, Bricks and Foundations) are already out of their bags. Hindsight, as they say, is a (@$%&#!).

It will always come up at some point, because discs are where the whole problem started. The discs that are already out there are the basis of all the illegal hard drives. So it's part of the historical perspective.

And it's a little interesting I think and wonder if others have had the same experience, but when I go out "slumming" as I call it, visiting competitors shows, when I'm certain it's an illegal hard drive system I've noted they don't have any tracks that didn't come off of old cdg's. That's to say there's no Karaoke Version, SBI, or tracks a US shopper could have had by downloads. At least not yet in my experience. The fact is updating an illegal hard drive with extra copies of legally downloaded tracks is a technical no-brainer, much easier than the ripping that went into creating the first illegal drive in the first place, so why doesn't it seem to be happening?

My own theory is a form of "soft" copy protection, different but still similar to what Cue mentioned in an earlier context. You pay $2 or $3 to buy a download, you aren't going to be inclined to just give it away. On the other hand you can't sell an illegal copy of the file you bought for enough money to make it worth your bother, because anyone who wants it can get it as easily as you did for the same $2 or $3. It's a Goldilocks thing: the price isn't too high (so get it legally), and it isn't too low (you wouldn't give free copies to just anyone), the price is in effect "just right". Not to absolutely prevent piracy, because that's impossible, but to dampen the incentive in the first place.

Of course this is only good for new songs, the ones that were never released before on cdg. It'll be decades if not centuries before the songs in this category outnumber the classic hits that were out first on expensive discs from which they were ripped.

Individual downloads are going to be the only way people want to buy new tracks in the future. True for the home market and KJ's alike. If a US manufacturer wants to participate in this brave new world with companies like Recisio, they'll eventually have to work out their licensing difficulties with the publishers, and granted that's not going to be easy. But in the end the dollar price can't be very high, it has to be "just right" or the pirates will come storming after the new releases.

Legalities aside, a technical help would be some way to stamp ownership in the metadata of a file at download purchase time. And then a way to detect if it had been tampered with. We're probably no longer talking about the mp3+g or other standard formats in that case, but some new format of highly encrypted karaoke file only the original purchaser can play. A new format would mean new hoster programs, perhaps with the ability to recognize illegal copies of files mandated by law and built in from the beginning. We did that for VCR's and videotapes for lord's sake! But here we go, we're back to legalities even in a technical fantasy. The legal and technical issues will be forever intertwined.

If that don't make you miss talking about good ol' discs, I don't know what will

I didn't say that... I think it was Lonnie who something along those lines.

Which doesn't exist, and won't exist, except as a figment of your imagination. You cannot find a single reputable source that will suggest something like that is even on the horizon, and you continue to try and advance it as something to talk about.


What name? Do you mean troll, the word you first pulled out to (improperly) describe Bazza?

Troll is what you are. It is a descriptive word, not a called name. It is someone who tries to get a rise out of people. Which obviously you are doing, because you can't be so dense as to continue to make utterly ridiculous claims.

If I wanted to call you a name, I'd use a word like idiot or fool. But I wouldn't do that.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

This is what I hear all the time as well. Those with the 100K+ hard drives have NOTHING new within the last few years or more. I am buying new music almost daily - whether it be todays music or back catalog stuff that was never released on disc 5-10 years ago when all these pirated drives started. Which is why I never worry about my meager 16,000 (individual) track song base, because I know I have more of what people want to sing & if I don't I will try to get it which those with the huge libraries won't~! Why - they won't buy the individual tracks because they HAVE 100K tracks! Why bother actually buying new stuff when they think they have it all.

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

Joe, because if there is no disc then you would not be part of it, we talk about disc when talking to you because you refuse to have part of any other format.

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

I want to apologize if my interest in this came across as being "frustrated", especially if you view it to be in regard to the actual content of this announcement that is being delayed. I happen to be a person that is critical of some of the choices some companies make in their marketing strategies, one being making multiple fruitless announcements of pending announcements of pending offerings...

Looking past this particular situation, it being a "boy cries WOLF" scenario, at this point, if online credit card details are truly all that needs to be worked out, then where is the potential harm in releasing program details? It would seem that the additional time needed to work out the remaining details mentioned here would allow for potential clients to peruse the general information of the offering, ask specific questions, and have time to contemplate its use in their scenarios, which, in turn, allows the offering company to pick up these customers sooner after becoming live...

I have stated ad nauseum, that is not the case. I have shifted from cassettes to laser discs and from laser discs to CDGs.

I alway change when something BETTER comes along. By better, I mean better for my business, not just a little more convenient for me. Just because something is the most recent, it doesn't neccesarily mean it's better. MP3s are more convenient, but there is absolutely no evidence that they are better for business. As a matter of fact, they have become a hindrance to the business of many who use them as of late due to - among other things - litigation based on their usage.

I'm just waiting for the NEXT next best thing

That being said, my question about discs continually being brought up was strictly in regard to the subject at hand. People keep posting that I want new songs to only come out on DISCS. since - if these folks had actually read ANY of my posts they would know this to be false - I wondered why they kept bringing it up...

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

No, actually, it came across more as you being a dick about it.



We don't want to release the site without the credit card processing being finalized. In order to do so, we would need to disable sections of the site, which adds work.

At long last, we're live.

We'll have an announcement shortly, but you can point your browser to http://soundchoice.com.

How many GEM torrents have there been in the last 4.5 years? ZERO.
How many GEM knockoffs have been on eBay on the last 4.5 years? ZERO.
How many hard drive sellers have GEM songs on their drives? ZERO.

I'd say it's working.

incorrect, every hard drive seller has the GEM songs on the drive, just red label instead of blue.

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

320kbps from the masters? Hardly. Poorly ripped 128kbps (or worse) copies with bad graphics.

I never said anything about hard media, that was Joe. I am talking more about the current protection schemes that require you to connect to the website in order to renew or validate your license. Exactly like digitrax and the karaoke cloud does. You have to connect every single month in order to keep using the tracks.

In that senario, it is a hell of a lot easier to just keep paying than to crack the files, or to try to find a source for them.

-James

Mr Harrington Did I read the new site correctly. I'm no attorney but it sounds like someone can pay a monthly fee and won't be sued. Please explain thanks

yes, you can steal anything you want from SC and will not be sued if you pay $200 a month.
the publishers will get none of that money and you will still be breaking the law, but SC...or PEP will do the right thing and keep quiet not telling the publishers about you....exactly what they wanted you NOT TO DO BEFORE.

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

And how many GEM Songs are NEW-NEVER-BEFORE-RELEASED-SONG-TRACKS - ZERO! So, what's your point Bazza? All the SC material that exists is ALREADY OUT THERE on Torrents sites and in Hard Drive sales. So, in other words, What's in the GEM series is already out there in a previous life. What point are you trying to make?