Karaoke Forums

I believe that was for just 1 case (so far).... And, it has yet to be determined/disclosed if that KJ ever turned his hard drive in (or not, and what the results of the KJ not obliging would be/were).

I'm having difficulty understanding the OP.
I'm a certified KJ in Raleigh. SC's suit against a number of KJs in this area was ordered split up and refiled against the individuals if SC chooses, and nothing has been refiled yet, to my knowledge.

And does this mean that you are now in a "pirate-free zone" and able to raise your rates?.....

Thanks Jerry - you know it seems nothing has come of that last suit at all and there are at least two of those guys still running shows. Guess the wheels are turning slowly in that case.

And expensively. If there are 25 defendants in the case, the filing fee would go up from $350.00 to $8,750.00 - which is what it should have been in the first place as far as I'm concerned.

Even though SC's logic is that these defendants are all "doing the same thing" they are still not "doing it together." Some of these courts are allowing them to file once -naming 25 defendants- but if the defendants respond, they will then need to file against them (again) individually.

I strongly suspect there is more to the Raleigh situation than SC chasing pirates.

not pirate free YET but many fewer and less than a tenth fewer newbies than this same time last year....and yes we have been able to raise our rates a bit for the first time in over 3 years......court systems work slowly but they do work. A legal competitor north of us has tripled his shows in the last 6 months ....cant wait for more filing here in the middle district of Florida and some venues having to lay out some cash as well Then this will really change

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

And how many "former pirates" are now "SC's NEW customers" and continue to be "your competitors?"

After dozens and dozens of lawsuits, you are still "not pirate free YET?"

Lovely.

In our area 2 former pirates are Gem owners and continue to be our competitors after 5 rounds of lawsuits that contained people in our little part of the world.......most do choose to ignore the lawsuits and hope they will just go away(defaulting and leaving SC with the ability to collect anything they own or ever will own .......a couple have selected the "I'll pay and leave the karaoke business option surrendering equipment ect ".....works for me Cant wait for more lawsuits in our area

_________________
"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

That's looking pretty ineffective for so many lawsuits.

Hi Athena,

In my market I am noticing what seem to be a new trend after suits have been filed by SC and CB. I am now getting an influx of new singers that have migrated to my shows looking for music that was once available at other shows (mostly named defendents by the manus) and is no longer available. Although the suits were filed many months ago and for a time it seemed that there was no direct or indirect effects in this market is now changing for the positive (for me). Even the kjs known to have have settled and are now "new customers of the manus", my business is on the rise once more even though through hard work of my own to earn and maintain and grow my relationship with my venues through value added service. The venues are now able to recognize that the rates I am asking are now justified (in their eyes) because they see the value of what I can do for them and no longer a comodity of being a kj with a huge library of music regardless of how the library was aquired. (The field has been leveled by the reduced song selections) The venues are now looking at the kj as a performer with quality hosting skills like it used to be back years ago when we worked from discs only. and made much more money per show hour worked. But with that being said, there will always be venues (customers) that will only look for the lowest bidder for services. Do we want them as our customer? Not me! Just today I dropped off an info pak at a venue I would like to work in and they have been using lowball kj for the last several years and the phone message left by the venue was "we heard you put on a prime show and we are intersted in talking to you". Note: they have been through 6 kjs in the last 2 years. I know of 3 of those that are no longer in the business since the suits were filed. I know of one of the kjs didn't own disc one and I heard he was getting out of the business and offered him 50cents on the $ for his library but he never would call me back. I know he needed the money since he was charged with 2nd offence dui and living in a motel with a karaoke collection of over 80K songs including mostly SC and CB. Ran into him 2 weeks ago and asked him about his discs and he said the were stolen from him. I them asked him about the police report but he said he didn't file a report, hmmmmm? And, he used to be my compitition since the venue only value the cost to them and not the value to them.
Sometimes change does not happen as fast as desired but does happen eventually. As you continue to grow your business there will be setbacks but that is true in almost any industry. This industry (the music industry as a whole) is poised to explode or implode depending upon the direction the industry chooses to move allowing for changes in laws and enforcement of agreements between artist and publishers and yet I nor anyone else can absolutly predict with reasonable accuracy what is goning to happen in the near or distant future espically with karaoke. And, that largest denominator in all this is the fact that we are now in a global marketplace dominated by the internet. Hang in there baby!

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

While I hope things work out for you, Athena, it is my considered opinion that going after venues as well as KJs will eventually do in SC.

Remember, while we Karaoke Hosts have tens of thousands invested in our businesses, venues not only have much more to protect ( real estate, inventory, licenses, etc), they have more resources with which to do so. I'm guessing that there will be an unpleasant legal rebound for SC, as well possible employment ripple effects for certain KJs.

Another thought comes to mind: If the trend toward deleting SC from libraries continues to grow ( whether it be for pirates, or the use forbidden by venues, or simply ethical reasons), the simple fact is that exposure to SC will diminish. Then add the fact that they no longer produce new tracks.

Within a couple of years of new singers unexposed to SC, having or not having that manufacturer will be of absolutely no import to even the most library dependent of KJs.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Rumbolt we have also seen an increase in singers at our shows due to lack of the songs they want to sing at the shows they used to frequent and many have commented that the quality of our sound is much better than what they were used to.

JoeC as you pointed out and I agreed in another thread our area is suffering from over saturation (although we disagree as to the reason) if 50% of the venues in my little part of the world quit doing karaoke it would only improve things even more. I am not dependent on any manufactures brand at our shows we do strive to provide the best quality tracks available for our singers.....I estimate we have CDG's from 20 or more manus in our libraries.

Chip....ineffective I think not....the legal system moves slowly and I never expected an quick solution to a problem that took years to get to the point it did.........I am seeing the tide turn and at the very least SC is doing something so a Anti-piracy Cheerleader I will remain

_________________
"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

So you had five rounds of lawsuits at approximately 25 to 30 defendants per lawsuit, (in some cases more) which equates to at least 125 lawsuits in "your little piece of the world" and that began two years ago.

And you think that is not ineffective? It is certainly been effective for the plaintiff, since they're the ones that get paid in the settlements. As far as anyone "exiting the business" this is obviously not a penalty for them nor is it their only source of income. As far as "surrendering equipment" is concerned, I'm sure that the plaintiff has plenty of use for a bunch of karaoke sound systems, otherwise I certainly don't see any pictures posted of piles and piles of confiscated karaoke systems from these pirates, nor do I see the plaintiff having some type of sale on used equipment.

The plaintiffs attempt at thwarting hard drive sellers has more than fallen flat. In what should have been a fairly easy case, has turned into a gigantic debacle complete with all the highlights and lows that you expect from one of the networks best soap operas. The mysterious investigator – after completing his undercover work – has apparently fallen in love with the evidence he has gathered and has disappeared into the sunset with said evidence in tow. Apparently this "investigator" was neither licensed nor bonded otherwise the plaintiff would be able to collect the bond, have a licensed yanked away and that would certainly help to fund the appeal.

but apparently to you, it's perfectly acceptable to label this as simply "a mistake" or a misstep, or even a learning experience.

Whatever.

Well of course, if 50% of the shows disappeared in ANY market for ANY reason, it would benefit those that remain. Again, we merely disagree on both the reasons and the percentage of disappearances.

Athena, you are aware that I know for a fact that you are NOT library dependant, but a skilled Karaoke Host.

That being said, I would submit that if 50% of your competition didn't disappear but simply removed SC from their libraries and replaced with the same songs from other mfrs., there would be very little impact.

I also have to agree with Chip that if SC has made 5 passes through just your region and you still have plenty of pirates, just how effective could they be in putting a dent in real (track theft) piracy nationwide?

Think about it. You still have plenty of pirates. Do you think SC will ( or even has the resources) to do 5 nation-wide passes? Then, after doing so, the entire nation still has an amount of pirates proportional to the ones that you have left now?

Then one might consider a nationwide group of people annoyed by this one little company, and how this group might react.....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

just a situation of a case of a little part of the world at a time JoeC....more cases where there are more people willing to help......The middle district of Florida is quite large containing more tan my little part of the world(IN THE 5 ROUNDS IN THE MIDDLE ONLY 9 IN OUR PART WERE NAMED) SC is hitting more little parts and spreading out from each little part....not fast but it is working.
The problem is 50% of the completion is replacing the SC after they were caught....doing them no good ...... burying their heads in the sand does not help after the evidence is already gathered any more that just ignoring the lawsuits does.

think of a rock being thrown into a pond and the ripples that occur.
we are seeing change even if some do not want to believe it

_________________
"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

What would you consider to be a reasonable time frame for this to all work out? It has been at least two years. Two more? Three more? Ten more?

Consider this:
It has taken this long with a small handfull of towns and yeilding very little change as a direct result from the lawsuits on KJs and venues (not sellers). If you extrapolate the time it has taken to achieve the little that has been achieved, against the numbers of the rest of the country, or even a single state, should we expect to wait perhaps another hundred years?

I know that example carries it to the extreme, but I am truly interested in how long you expect it to take, and how much patience you expect the rest of us to have?

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KNOW THYSELF

earthling12357
since you asked my opinion I would have to state that in my opinion it would take about double the time it took for the problem to get as bad as it did in our little part of the world. I can not speak for the rest of the USA as I am only farmilar with my area. I do know that the areas where more people are willing to help in the fight against piracy see more action.If you want to see more action in your little part of the world help with the fight. I celebrate every little win.....remember patience is a virtue.

I KNOW when some of our local venues have to pay out the snowball will move much more quickly....currently most are listening to the "pirates" and burying heads in sand....a few defaults against them will be hitting soon....when bar owners talk and find out what it will cost them big bucks to employ the pirates they will either pay for LEGAL karaoke or QUIT karaoke....either works for me.

_________________
"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

It won't cost them anything to employ pirates who don't use Sound Choice or Chartbuster karaoke tracks. The smart pirate is probably already pointing that out on a regular basis....

Rickgood
True but most in my little part of the world have already been caught so pulling the brands now is too little too late.....and the middle district judge has ordered on quite a few cases that SC can destroy/delete ALL tracks the KJ can not show a original disc for.....let them keep the heads in the sand.....makes me happy as a clam......sooner or later the other manus will realize how much piracy hurts them too and will get involved

_________________
"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey