Karaoke Forums

From the HELP license:



Trademarks are totally covered..... PEP will not sue you if you join. BUT - that is all you get. So, sign up... Provide all of your details to their registry and when the day comes that Mr. Paul Stacy wants to file one big fat lawsuit and collect another paycheck, you can expect to be dragged into court - and you will pay. PEP will use this disclaimer to say that they told you so...it was all in the license you signed...

Buyer beware is all I'm sayin'

Harrington has in the past covered that. he said that there is no professional use or personal use license for music, there is only a "use" license. all music is for personal use until the alphabet companies are paid [url]then[/url] professional use is covered.

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

Let's face the truth people Sound Choice and Phoenix Entertainment Partners now are clear from any copyright wrong doing from the major publishers. Therefore from a US Based prospective this makes the library from end-to-end legal as long as you are following the guidelines which is 1 don't steal the karaoke music as you are stealing from the artist/songwriter which in turn yourself are committing copyright infringement and asking for the publisher to come after you and for BMI, ASCAP and SEASEC to come after your venue. And two buy the music from from the Karaoke Label so you don't get slapped with a trademark lawsuit.

As stated the winners are the Artist, Publisher, Songwriter, Karaoke Label and 100% legal host and their venue's. The looser are the people stealing the music, karaoke and other media.

Put yourself in this situation you wouldn't want someone to walk into every one of our venue's and steal any of your karaoke shows and then ask yourself if it is appropriate to do the same with media?

The publisher royalty pool is a new feature, the terms of which have only been finalized in the last few days. We have not updated our agreements yet to reflect the new permissions granted by participating publishers, but we expect to do so this week. We're also working to sign up additional publishers.

The royalty pool is paid out to participating publishers, who have issued pass-through licenses for that purpose.



I guess that means we aren't misleading our customers.



More fearmongering, utterly baseless. I'd have thought you would have learned your lesson the last time, but I guess we'll have to teach you again.

Fearmongering? Please Jim....



The details are in the fine print. You advertise your new HELP program with a clear definition of the service you provide for your trademark. And now say that you are actually selling something completely different. And you are calling this fear mongering?

You are asking your customers to believe that you have the rights to offer your scheme to cover 16,500 SC tracks. For the uninitiated, approximately 50-60% of which are owned 100% by the 3 major publishers. The rest are owned by more than one or several publishers for each song. AND those shares of ownership change frequently. The 3 majors cannot give you approvals of a work that they don't own 100% rights to. The list of songs and their publisher shares are always included in the "Schedule A" of the license they issue. Really looking forward to seeing that attachment in your new and improved agreement.

Sorry, I am not fear mongering. But I am not drinking the Koolaid and signing an agreement that doesn't clearly grant me the increasingly broad rights you are claiming and neither should anyone else. You know, one free of the disclaimers you have in there now...

How many karaoke operators, not producers, but operators, have ever been sued for copyright infringement by a music publisher?

Zero.

We've tried to get their interest in joining in our suits. We'll keep trying. But it hasn't happened yet because they are not interested.

So your uninformed wailing is nothing but fearmongering.

Wikipedia definition:



Jim, it’s interesting that you elect to call my attention to the fine print in your HELP license fear mongering. I would argue that many would level this accusation at you and Kurt. After all, it is the fear of your litigation that is driving one your most important revenue streams…

Your failure to respond to the legitimate points raised in my earlier posts speak volumes about your entire HELP scheme.

From the Pep Rocks site:





Who are the publishers Jim? And if you have publishers approval for 16,500 tracks, why do you also state:



Your only answer to my queries is the question:



Really? That’s it? Here is an analogy for you:

In the late 90’s, Travellers Insurance company was issuing insurance policies to practically every karaoke manufacturer and distributor in the US after looking at their risk the same way you do. They had zero to very few claims. The publishers never had a reason to sue these entities. But as of today, Travellers has paid out tens of millions as a result and continue to do so to this day. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were involved in your latest settlement… Since when is the kind of precedent you describe an accurate predictor of the future?

US publishers historically have a dim view of the karaoke industry and they are also watching their revenue models change dramatically for reasons everyone is aware of. Why wouldn’t they get their hired gun to go after every HELP license owner? You will have a nice and tidy list of licensees to turn over and they will have to fend for themselves. The disclaimer in your agreement says it all.

So, I take offence at your fear mongering label. I have been in this industry for over 25 years in various roles for various companies and your response to my posts says far more about PEP than it does about me.

Once again - buyers beware!

Since PEP/Soundchoice does not own the musical copyrights to the majority of the musical works involved, I guess the only relevant question to Mr Harrington would be is Stingray going to be involved in this program?

Everything else is kind of a moot point.

-James

Chippy has returned spouting his usual garbage.

_________________
You can be strange but not a stranger

Sounds about right. Your evident goal is to cause damage to Phoenix, and you're seeking to do so using the tactics described.

I'm not going to take your bait. As I said before, we are in the process of revising our agreements to reflect the new aspects of the HELP program, and we'll debut those this week. In my opinion, which has been borne out pretty well historically, merely acquiring and using unauthorized copies of karaoke tracks does not create copyright infringement liability for a karaoke operator as long as the ASCAP/BMI/SESAC fees are paid. (It would create liability for the person who made or distributed the copies.) However, anyone who has concerns about that should take them up with a lawyer.

so using the "acquired" karaoke tracks in a venue paying the alphabet is no longer copyright violation (because rights are being paid to the pubs.) but only a trademark violation for the karaoke manufacturer because the alphabet does not send royalties to karaoke manufacturers.
am i reading that right?

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

Any venue that is using/playing/performing musical entertainment is responsible to pay the alphabets - it covers performance of the work only. PEP is offering you a license that protects you from being sued by them for use of their trademark (SC Logo), which has been and continues to be the basis for their litigation against KJ's and venues. The HELP license published as of today clearly defines that they are not covering any other intellectual property which would be the publishing/copyrights.

Mr. Harrington has stated that a new agreement will be forthcoming that will no longer have this disclaimer. He says that a new "royalty pool" has been agreed to which will pay the publishers and thus cover the 16,500 songs that are red labeled.

After looking at the list of songs, I can ascertain that over 800 publishers/writers are holding the rights to the catalog. So either there will be a considerable list of these publishers included in the license or on the web site, or there will be a sizable reduction from the 16,500 songs mentioned with a detailed list of those not covered.

The reason that a disclaimer is important is because it protects PEP. Not you. It also exposes the HELP license holder to the risk that the publishers could claim that they did not grant the rights to shift the original SC discs to a hard drive and were never even asked.

Every SC disc clearly states the following warning:




PEP reiterates this on their FAQ



“Copyright owner” refers to the Publishers of the Compositions, as well as the owners of the Master Recordings. There are many on this forum who have remained ODB (original disc based), not because they are afraid of computers....they are cautious. Copyright infringement carries a fine of 150K per infraction.

Unfortunately, Kurt never exercised his rights granted by Stingray to offer downloads of the SC catalog which would have made the new HELP program simple to implement. He didn't do it because it would have meant paying for all new licenses (assuming he could get them) from the publishers and the cash advances required upfront. Unless PEP secures a new license from Stingray, there can be no repressing of discs, GEM sets or anything else. The trademark is really all they have to offer.

I am not a “wailing fear mongerer” as labeled by Mr. Harrington. I am thoughtfully reviewing the legal agreement that he crafted, and raising legitimate concerns. It appears as though PEP prepared this license in haste to get the funds rolling in without considering that some of us actually do read the fine print and disclaimers. Their response to the queries? “The publisher royalty pool is a new feature, the terms of which have only been finalized in the last few days. We have not updated our agreements yet to reflect the new permissions granted by participating publishers, but we expect to do so this week. We're also working to sign up additional publishers.” So those of you who already signed up should be looking out for a new and improved license.

Mr. Harrington has responded to these legitimate inquiries with name calling and sarcasm. Like many companies that offer products or services that make claims that appear to be too good to be true, this tactic seems all too familiar. Shift attention away from the question that was dared to be asked and attack the character of the questioner instead.

As for Stingrays involvement? Highly unlikely. The last I heard, the agreement between SC and Stingray expired last December and after Derek’s departure, they have divested themselves of all things Slep. Jim can correct me if I’m wrong, but he will probably just call me some more names…

i did not mention Stingray at all.
also, i was hoping just to hear from Jim that i understood what HE said, noting more.

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

The response regarding Stingray was directed towards this post.

I also thoughtfully reviewed the legal agreement with an IP attorney back when I bought my first GEM.

While the IP attorney did raise a few concerns, they weren't anything that had a material impact on me so long as I adhered to what I was agreeing to. She did bring up the concern about litigation from the publishers against KJ's which even she agreed was likely a non-issue.

So long as I didn't dupe the library, share it, modify it, resell the IP - (in other words - pirate) - it was a non-issue.

Actually, her biggest concern was why I would leave a 16 year career at Microsoft to become a karaoke operator. She thought that was the most concerning aspect of our whole meeting.

_________________
-Chris

Considering that GEM discs were produced in UK and licensed there, I think it's a little bit different argument. I can appreciate your view as well after seeking council. I'm pretty sure what those concerns were. My issue/focus has been HELP more than GEM...

In my view, which has nothing to do with the HELP license but is simply a matter of copyright law, merely playing karaoke tracks in a venue that is paid up on its ASCAP/BMI/SESAC fees, without any actual copying of the files, is not a copyright infringement.

The reason for this is simple. There are five exclusive rights of a copyright owner: Reproduction, adaptation (making derivative works), distribution, public display, and public performance. The PRO fees cover the public performance rights. If you do not yourself reproduce the tracks or distribute them (and you're not adapting them or publicly displaying them), and the performance rights are covered, what's left?

I think that a major reason why you don't see publishers going after KJs is precisely because there isn't much of a case in the absence of evidence that the KJ actually copied the works. If the PRO fees haven't been paid, it's easier for them to let ASCAP/BMI/SESAC run the show.

That doesn't mean there isn't copyright infringement arising from the path those copies took to get to the KJ--I just don't think the KJ is necessarily liable for it.

The trademark calculus is different, of course.

What we are doing with the royalty pool is getting the publishers compensation for the copying on approximately the same terms as they would get if the copies were authorized--except that they get paid over and over and over again, month after month, and as with the PROs, they don't have to do much if anything for the payments. The copies are out there, and nobody's going to be able to stop them, so they (and we) might as well make money on them.

That is not what I said. I said that a revised agreement is in the works that would reflect the new arrangement. I did not say that all publishers of all 16,500 songs would be covered, although royalties are being reserved for those publishers. I said that royalties will be paid out to participating publishers.



This is not accurate. There are existing tracks that belong to PEP, and we would of course own anything new that's produced.



You're not "raising legitimate concerns" because there is zero chance you will be a HELP licensee. What you are attempting to do is continuing your vendetta against the SC brand by raising and repeating "concerns" that don't actually concern you in order to destroy any hope of financial success the company might have. You are working to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt.



Shifting attention and character attacks are your own tactics. I haven't engaged in "name calling." Correctly identifying the tactic you're using is not "name calling." It is simply telling the truth. As for character attacks, how could I engage in those? I have no idea who you are. Unlike you, my posts to this page are made with full disclosure of who I am and who I work for. Instead, you hide behind a moniker. Step out from the shadows and tell us all who you are, so that we can know what your perspective is and how that might color what you're saying.

I would still like a yes or no answer regarding stingray please, unless of course you are unable to comment regarding that.

-James