Karaoke Forums

Yeah, right.... ever since they decided not to fight in court and run as many "specials" as they could scoop up before they left.... it was just a matter of time.... they just might not have known exactly which day....

So, I'll disagree that it was "just coincidence" and consider it simply them not knowing the exact date the inevitable was going to occur but fully knowing it was coming.

It looks like possibly they chose not to because they knew they were wrong with the legalities?

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

The CAVS lawsuit had exactly ZERO to do with this. But keep spinning up your fantastic dream about how it all went down.

Did you know that Public Storage offers the first month's rent for $1? I heard you might need some extra space to store your CB discs, and I want you to get the best deal. I'd go climate-controlled if I were you. Summers can get pretty hot even up in Michigan.

If Chartbuster knew this was coming, why exactly didn't they give their loyal KJ customers the head's up? I think I'd been pretty pissed if I had purchased a bunch of credits and then had them walk out on them.

Oh, Harrington -- no storage unit needed, but thank you so much for your concern. Why don't you come up and visit sometime.

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Birdofsong

You are not exactly forthcoming with information and if it's something that has been planned for months, why hasn't Compuhost and Digitrax been ready to hit the ground runnin'? Instead, it all looks like a last minute cluster**** where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.... credits have to be suspended, etc.... It's (once again) a sloppy way to conduct business..... fair statement?



Another veiled threat counselor? I would think you take this opportunity to do what you could to avoid your new client from appearing adversarial to the very customers it's wanting to cultivate as a spirit of cooperation rather than an atmosphere of suspicion and contempt.

Will Digitrax provide the 100% ironclad guarantee (that Kurt won't) and/or refund the purchase price of the discs bearing their trademark?

In the meantime, I'll check with a few publishers to see if the licensing for the past libraries are as transferable as the trademark.... I'll call you from the pay phone at the public storage....

If I had to hazard a guess, I don't believe the DigiTrax.com site will go live until May 10th/11th or later.

If all of the rumor-milling, emails and other pieces of info floating around are glued toghether, it seems to me that May 10th/11th is a sort of magic date when CB officially ceases to be and DigiTrax can go live.

As for giving any of us a heads up.....I have seen enough corporate acquisitions, mergers, sales, spinoffs within Microsoft over the years to know that the people that are the most impacted (employees and customers) are almost without fail, the last to know. It doesn't surprise me in the least that it went down the way it has.

There were rumblings here in the forums about their fire sales that started last year, and the slow down in production and shipping. In restrospect we all knew something was going on. I do think the announcement by Gretchen was odd about changing the way we thought about karaoke forever. But I am not going to condemn her or Chartbuster just yet simply because there is apparently much left to develop.

For me, it is business as usual until the DigiTrax site goes live. I am not going to feed rumor mills, speculate about legal actions, or berate a company that for two decades gave us some great music. I am just going to wait and see what happens, hope for something cool, and run my business above board.

-Chris

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-Chris

It is curious as to why their last monthly disc was in Oct - the same month CAVS filed against them. Although why Jan & Feb were released - but never widely advertised just adds to that. The 'fire' sales started right about Nov. as well, the month after CAVS filed against them. They never had those sales of those proportions (60-75% off) anytime before that.

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

another great post Chrisavis

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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

Ding, Ding, Ding! Cee-Gar!

And the logical conclusion is that if they were wrong with the legalities with CAVS, they would have most likely been "wrong with the legalities" with every other customer as well.

Just a question though, regarding those judgements in the SC suits, couldn't it be they defendants didn't want to pursue it because they knew they were wrong with the legalities in the fact they media shifted without permission?

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

Absolutely. The pirate KJ that works for $50 and beer is certainly a person of unsavory character.... and those are not the ones that merely "mediashifted" because I believe they are the ones that never owned discs.

However, there is not just an "economy of scale" at work here too, but a much larger issue. And that has to do with what you've always expected from a music company in this business and that expectation is that they would hold themselves to a higher standard than the $50 pirate KJ and not lie, cheat or steal from the publishers or the KJ customers that purchase their products.

We see from this latest episode, that is not the case and a prime example of a vendor that lied, breached and defrauded it's customers and cheated the publishers all the while proclaiming that the very piracy it was engaged in on a grand scale was somehow making it a "victim of evil KJ pirates." And all this was undisputed in Federal Court.

KJ's are being asked again to "trust" a new entity that is already prepared not to trust it's own prospective customers to the point it has already incorporated and began litigation before the May 10th "switchover." Because they are already involved in a suit of dozens of defendants, when did this "transfer" really occur? Was it February when the division was formed?

Digitrax (to my understanding) didn't license, make or sell the chartbuster discs all those years.... but they are now engaged to sue for money to "recover" something they didn't lose in the first place... It's therefore just a "judicial pure profit machine" to fund their startup costs? Why is this about to be tolerated? Has it started snowing already?

As HarringtonLaw has alluded: an entity is entitled to trademark protection even if they are selling Taiwanese knock-off counterfeit watches.

I see that there doesn't seem to be much difference on the dance floor other than the dancers.... and HarringtonLaw is leading the band.

Your mileage may vary.

Chartbusters is ceasing operations on May 10th.

Digitrax will be starting "mid-May".

Greg said he found out about CB going under on Monday.

The "new company" will be going after pirates on a MUCH larger scale and more agressively than SC and CB has even attempted.

Digitrax is in the process of removing the Chartbusters Logo from all the music and putting their logo on the songs, but the music and graphics will remain the same.

He has applied for a job with Digitrax.

Maybe this will clear up some speculation in some areas.

I can't help but wonder if Digitrax is just Chartbuster/Kurt Slep under a new name. And, I can't help but wonder if the money I paid for the complete Gem Series and the 12,000+ CB hard drive was a boondoggle. I guess I will have to wait and see.

The only time I ever hear of a business going out of business in advance are the ones advertising "Going out of business sales, everything must go". Then the owner who owned ABC Enterprises opens up a few days later as ABC(2012) Enterprises a day or two later.

I think about the only large international company that people had advance warning of was Blockbuster.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

While I think in the case of chartbuster, these were less than ideal conditions. I don't believe they would be advertising why they were going out of business.

so i understand..................
Chartbuster knew this was happining for months, knew when it was going to end, and still told people they could sign up for a service (Streaming) that would be discontinued, or sell a drive that can not be maintained or accessed without continuous service from them and this is concidered to be acceptable.
people just paid for a recertification for a company that was not going to exist, giving them a credit of $200.00 that they can never use, and this is concidered acceptable.
i would guess that at this time people still have some MPHD in the mail that they can not unlock songs for, not that Norbert had issue taking their money knowing that they would not service them and this is acceptable?
or did they not know and got screwed? only one answer can be truthful.

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

But this has not happened. My credits still work, and will continue to work with Compuhost to unlock any songs on the drive.



I don't see how the GEM series is of any concern in the CB quagmire.

Sound Choice is still here and with the 12000+ Drive, you own those tracks outright.

-Chris

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-Chris

...Not trying to a jerk here but I thought the Karaoke Manufacturers told us that WE (the KJ's) don't own any of the karaoke music tracks but only the "Plastic" that it's stored on (such as discs, SD Cards, Hard Drives and or whatever else). Am I just confused here?

Fair enough. We don't "own" it to the extent that we can do anything with it as we please. Speaking only for the CB12000+ The terms of purchase are identical to purchasing karaoke music on a disc. Neither can be taken back. So you are free to use them as intended which in this case I intend to mean in a commercial setting as a KJ.

-Chris

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-Chris

...I basically understood what you meant but there is a lot of confusion between the two for some people.