Karaoke Forums

If you were using a computer you no longer get to walk away for free even if you have the discs. They can still charge the audit fee if you want to continue on computer and supposedly they make it a higher fee than if you had done it voluntarily.

I don't want to knock Karaoke Scene. But any way you want to slice and dice it, lawsuits or no lawsuits, if this place were a hot spot for KJ's, we would have a lot more than 227 total. There would be a lot more than 12 that would have joined in the last 2.5 years, and way more than 105 would have logged on this calendar year.

A search for "sound choice lawsuit" and variations thereof, bubble up only a single reference to KS on the first page of Google and nothing until page 3 on Bing. There are a lot of other destinations people will end up before here.

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-Chris

I disagree.

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KNOW THYSELF

I tend to agree with your points, but for different reasons, and I think your statistics are flawed or incomplete for use to measure KJ population on this forum.
If you are going to attempt to crunch numbers for statistics, you should also take into account that there have been very few KJs sued in the last calendar year compared to years past.
You must also remember that when using google, your results for a given search will be different from those in regions different from your own and they will differ based on the search habits of others as well.
Also, few of those who are sued have cared enough about their chosen profession to seek out forums and information to improve themselves and their performance anyway, so for many they would have no idea where to start looking.
There is no requirement on this forum to identify yourself as a KJ when you join. Of the 46 new members this month, about five have chosen names and made some posts that could make you think they are KJs, yet none have identified themselves as such in their profile settings.
While I believe you are correct that this is not a grand KJ hotspot, I believe it is about as hot as a KJ hotspot can get, and I also believe the lawsuits have driven many KJs here looking for information without participating.

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KNOW THYSELF

My whole tangent to this topic is to demonstrate that karaoke hosts in general are ignorant to the goings on outside of the local geographies where they work. Unless Sound Choice has been in their area, they just don't know anything about it and they aren't engaged on any platform that would inform them of lawsuit activity.

I speak to current and former KJ's every couple of weeks around the US when I buy discs and there are still folks that don't know that Sound Choice and Chartbuster are out of business. Much that KJ's have been sued.

Plus, there hasn't been any significant lawsuit activity since the Las Vegas suits and that is now over a year old. No one talks about in the Seattle area and haven't for a long while. I just don't see anyone, even those who were sued, ending up on Karaoke Scene. Even if they do, they won't find easily find any answers here.

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-Chris

Exactly. How on God's green earth is this question the responsibility of the KJ? It is up to SC to develop the techniques ( yes there are quite a few, but SC isn't employing me to solve their problems) of a professional investigation. They chose not to.they prefer the path of the IP troll. Sue, intimidate a settlement, and try to avoid a court case based on a weak to non-existent claim.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

The "technique" is already there. It is called a Discovery. That is why they have them. But you do not seem to understand the legal system.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I think is funny how the lack of "SEEING DISCS" is cause for a law suit. I know of 4 karaoke places here that run their show from a sound booth and requests are taken via kiosk. You never really see the KJ so how do you know if he is slinging discs. OH NOW don't go and say we can tell by the graphics on the screen. Geez lots of thing could cause fuzzy graphics on a screen. Bad cables, dirty player, monitor on the fritz, grounding problems, ETC.

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I like everyone when I first meet them. If you don't like me that's not my problem it's YOURS!
A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet

And you seem to have no understanding of ethics, whether through upbringing or life experience.

They sue without any evidence or proof of wrongdoing, THEN go fishing for discovery. A PROFESSIONAL investigation - and despite your background, you seem to have successfully avoided knowledge of what that is - could provide what is neccesary BEFORE a suit. Again like any IP troll, they aren't interested. They want to sue, scare out a settlement rather than fight a weak to non-existent case in court, then do it again......

Unethical. Maybe someone who you trust could explain it to you?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

It's not a matter of fuzziness on the screen, if you know what are looking at yes you can tell a difference between a disc & a extended computer screen. It was one of the first things I noticed when I moved from disc to computer how different the graphics looked in comparison to the original disc.
But those that run computer often use the add ons in the software ie marquee, next singer up display, etc. which is a dead giveaway.

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I think this is the first time I have seen you post Chris, SC is out of business. I thought they were still a viable company trying to sell their remaining product, with the forlorn promise that like Mac Arthur "They shall return". That they were not finished as a company like CB is. So as one of their supporters even you now admit they are no longer in business? If that is the case why haven't they thrown in the towel and gone down the download, join Cloud, fire sale road?

You forget the Summits don't you Chris? Wasn't it the so called industry leaders experts who first gave us their figures on the estimated number of hosts in this country? As I recall they put the number at around 45,000 nationwide, which for a country of over 300 million people would seem about right. That was a Summit I. At Summit II they said there had been an increase of 10% which would bring the total pretty close to 50,000. If you take SC's figure that around 1,000 cases have been settled, I wonder if that includes dismissals? Then the entire process for it's years of work have resulted in a 2% solution or less. True this is their figures, but then again they should be in the best position to make such an estimate, right?

Let's approach this a different way.

What do you imagine that the typical SC pre-suit investigation entails?

Poor choice of words on my part.

"I speak to current and former KJ's every couple of weeks around the US when I buy discs and there are still folks that don't know that Sound Choice stopped new production and Chartbuster is out of business."



I question their numbers simply because I don't know how they came by them. It is an estimate of course, but how do they come by it? I am guessing there are more KJ's in Seattle then in all of Montana.

Maybe Mr. Harrington can enlighten us on how it was calculated.

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-Chris

Does it really matter Jim? If SC is no longer in business or is a viable company, what difference does the investigations make? From what I have read both SC and APS failed to share investigation information with each other, leading to the dismissal of several of the SC suits. One has to ask one's self why would they fail to share information, which would be helpful in bringing suits to a successful conclusion? Suits in which both parties stood to profit from? The answer is simple there was no information to share, the investigations if they were ever done, never surfaced. This reinforces the idea that names were just pulled out of the hat and no real fact finding was ever done. Suits were filed with the idea of quick out of court settlements. That is why so many suits that would have required discovery were simply dismissed. In many cases never to be refiled.

A poor choice of words Chris? Or just stating the simple truth? What is called a Freudian slip.

Just like there are more hosts in Southern California than in Northern California. As I recall Chris one of the ways it was determined how many hosts were out here involved sales numbers. The amount of product sold by SC before the effects of Piracy started taking a bite out of profits for the company. I don't know if this would be an accurate measure, however, because they did not make a distinction between commercial hosts, and home users. Since most of the losses came from the loss of the home market, it would seem any estimate would have to take into account those loses. It would make arriving at an accurate estimate of hosts more difficult. You forget one other thing that came out of the Summits Chris, if Cloud failed then the industry would implode sometime soon. Already this has happened since most of the U.S. producers are now out of business. If you need product your have to buy it outside this country. Even SC's GEM product was licensed in the UK.

I just purchased 300 cdg's (discs) for $100 plus 20 dollars shipping from a guy that thinks he doesn't need them anymore. Almost 1/2 were SC. There are way more people that don't have a clue that what they are doing is illegal, than those that KNOW they are doing something illegal. Furthermore most don't care.

Is this default judgment one of the decisions on the merits that you speak of Jim? And isn't Slep-tone appealing this decision? And isn't it doing so because it/you feel entitled to more? Note the "artful" pleading reference.
http://tinyurl.com/n2smd6c

Under the Lanham Act, attorneys fees are awarded in only exceptional cases, not for cases that you won merely because the other side did not appear. See the reference to the Cairns case in Judge Wright's order awarding fees against Slep-tone for bad faith litigation tactics (which are hardly present in a default). When a case is “either groundless, unreasonable, vexatious, or pursued in bad faith,” the Ninth Circuit has held that it is an exceptional case which warrants the award of attorney's fees. Cairns v. Franklin Mint Co., 292 F.3d 1139, 1156 (9th Cir. 2002). You ought to read that case and then let us all know exactly what conduct of defendant Baker would warrant such an appeal.

I'm assuming that, having finished a law degree, you're able to read. In that case, Slep-Tone was awarded $10,000 in statutory damages. Only an idiot would consider that decision to be against Slep-Tone.



I'm not involved in that case and have no feelings about it.

The point of the appeal is to obtain a review of the decision not to award attorney fees under Oregon law.



The Cairns case you cite refers to situations in which the defendant prevails. When the plaintiff prevails, a case is exceptional when the defendant's conduct is "fraudulent, deliberate, or willful." Horphag Research Ltd. v. Garcia, 475 F.3d 1029, 1039 (9th Cir. 2007).

What about the facts suggests that this defendant's infringement was anything other than willful or deliberate?