Karaoke Forums

Chris, you can quote that (from PEP's website) all you want, but that is NOT what you posted originally. Your post was saying (or implying) that PEP will give you access to all of those tracks, NOT that you have to obtain all of these tracks yourself, and PEP doesn't care how you obtained them. That's how I read/interpreted your earlier post.

I don't know where Chris got that info from but the way I read it is your paying them a monthly fee to be able to use the SC discs that your already own on any type of media. You are NOT gaining access to their library.

Unless Chris is right, paying $199 (or whatever it is) a month to use music that you already own is just total lunacy. It just keeps getting more unbelievable every the day.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

I don't have many SC discs, but I legally purchased and have receipts for every single one that I have. Why should I have to pay a monthly fee to use them?

We purchase your product, support you, and this is the thanks we get. Nice payback.

This is NOT how a company should treat KJ's who have legally purchased their product and supported them throughout all those years. It looks like a library consisting of only SBI, Sunfly, Zoom might be the way to go.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Semantics. Read between the lines. You know EXACTLY what was meant by my statement. You are just drilling in to drill in.

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-Chris

And your other quote was:



So basically Chris what you are implying is that you, along with Kurt Slep now think it is fine and dandy to go to a torrent and grab all the SC you want and then pay the monthly fee.
Quite a change in philosophy for you two.
This might be where Que was trying to go.

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Music speaks to the heart in ways words cannot express.

Am I misunderstanding this? Any kind of useable program that legally accessed 16,000+ songs for 200 bucks/month would be viable for some businesses, but my impression was that it was the cost of media shifting, and acquisition of material is not included.

If I can get karaoke for $200 a month, I'll mothball my SC discs.

Morally it is for the cost of media shifting (as immoral as it seems) but technically, and as implied by Kurt Slep and his new Sound Choice entity, they do not care how you have acquired your tracks as long as you pay the monthly fee. (thus the reference above about going to a torrent site and downloading all the SC tracks)

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Music speaks to the heart in ways words cannot express.

Not quite.... This is for MEDIA-SHIFTED formats only (in other words, you are not playing a CDG on a CDG player (or a machine that can play a physical CDG):
1. Any kind of useable program that legally or illegally accessed 16,000+ songs for 200 bucks/month...
2. The bitrate of the media-shifted discs must be 192 or greater (how or when they are going to check/investigate that, I haven't a clue).

But my point, just for clarification, is that they're not including access to the songs, but just leaving you alone for $200/mo. if you have them or if you can find them yourself. Right?

Sounds like "Extortion" to me.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

That is correct. IF you can find the songs at the required quality level and pay their fee, as far as they are concerned, they will leave you alone. The torrents that people have alluded to though will NOT help you. 99.9% of it is all 128k or worse and extremely crappy graphics.

The other way to avoid this is to just use the discs. If you have software that will play CDG discs from the computer's drive, then it wouldn't be that much of a hassle to use them that way.

Or you can do what I used to do, which is create a cdg track with a long piece of music *I used American Pie cause it's nine minutes long* and rename it to something like "cdg disc*.

You can now use this file to cue a disc under the singer's name in the rotation, press play on the software, switch the video feed to the player, and press play.

Voila, no interferance from PEP/Soundchoice

No extorion would be "Pay us the $200 or you can't use our products AT ALL" which they don't have the right to do anyway.

At least you still have a choice, even if it is a crappy one.

-James

Sound Choice has become the Mafia of Karaoke. They are expecting people to pay "Protection" Money. At least when Stellar did it, it was a one time $2,300 fee, and that was that. Monthly payments is ridiculous, especially for those that bought their SC discs, and just copied them to a hard drive. Someone mentioned extortion, yup, that is EXACTLY what this is!! Oh well. I am still NOT INTERESTED in doing business with them. So, now what is a court case going to look like for the guy that just took his SC discs, that he bought, and shifted them,(since he isn't a member of this or any other forum, and hasn't been informed that shifting SCX is a big no-no), onto his hard drive? There is no more audit, so how does he prove that he was just shifting his own stuff, and that he didn't steal anything?? Screw him, now he either pays the protection fee, or gets stuck with a settlement?? REALLY?? Unbelievable!!

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

the diference i see is that the Stellar CAP was "pay $3100 for the stuff you stole to make it right and we will be done" the SC method is "pay $200 a month for the stuff you bought forever or we sue you as a thank you for buying our material".

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

I'm sure you know the mafia is deeply intrenched in the music industry and has been for many years. MCA Universal ring a bell? Why not use a successful time proven method to extract money from the common man. Same old same old.

For you full time KJ's I think a deal at $200 per month INCLUDING at least 5-6 new tunes would be an OK deal.

However $200 per month, and nothing new for you, is only going to set the playing field full of new landmines. I see the Pirates (and non-pirates) who sign on and start paying becoming the new 'dime droppers' against those who don't sign up! That's by design. And of course there is the paying into perpetuity part! If this is the best their marketing consultants came up with they may want to consult better ones IMHO.

Perhaps the new karaoke model will be a keyboard player with some lyrics on an iPad, and labeled Jazz-e-oke! Even the PROS don't seem to care about venues with anything labeled Jazz!

Choose wisely grasshopper. Life's tough .. better wear a helmet!

What I am saying is that *IF* you can acquire Sound Choice tracks that meet the standards, Sound Choice doesn't care where they came from. This is EXACTLY the same situation as the Stellar CAP agreement. If that comes from a Torrent and you pay Sound Choice for use, then you are following the rules. If people were okay with how karaoke tracks were acquire under a CAP then they should be okay with how they are acquired under HELP.

btw.....I am reviewing all of the information on the PEP site and prepping some tough questions for Kurt. I am not 100% okay with the entire program. I do think it puts undo pressure on part time hosts. I think it promotes the very piracy that SC railed against. I think it lets the KJ BIll's of the world completely off the hook.

The difference on my part is that I have no intention of stopping my acquisition of physical media. I am still going to push for 1-1 for music that was only produced on disc. That is how I am going to run my business because that is how I feel it should be done. Others can torrent SC all day long and pay their fee.

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-Chris

Tell Kurt this too...

If you have legally purchased and own your discs, you should able to media shift and NOT have to pay anything.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

So, it doesn't really matter that most of us tried to walk the straight and narrow, do the right thing, and legally purchase our discs. Now, they're telling us, we don't care anymore if your a pirate! Go on, buy those loaded hard drives off of ebay or Craig's List! Download all the tracks you want from those illegal file sharing websites! Go on, son! We don't care! Just pay us $200 a month, and we leave you alone! Isn't that wonderful??!!

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Chris..

This is whole thing is clearly wrong and disgusts me. I know that you are an SC fanboy but this is way over the top. One more nail in the coffin of karaoke hosts. This is not going to curb piracy, it's only going to make it worse.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.