Karaoke Forums

another paranoid KJ heard from.

Watch out! Here comes the boogie police man.

I don't get where you come up with this crap about being paranoid. People are protecting their interests and the interests of their venues. Everyone has different ways of protecting their businesses, and for you to talk about paranoia is just ridiculous. You talk about the fact that you make your own karaoke tracks. Do you pay license fees to do that, or do you just use music and add lyric sweeps to it?? If that is what you do, you are doing the wrong thing, and "could" get a KJ and a venue in trouble. Is it likely? Absolutely not, but anything is still possible. I don't play burns. One reason is that I don't know what is on them. I could put the disc in, and an SC logo could pop up, and come to find an SC minion is watching my show and I get in trouble for playing shift material. Once again, is it it likely? No, but it IS possible. I'll be damned if I am going to run the risk of having to pay some settlement with SC because some (@$%&#!) brought me a CD-R with SC on it.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Sorry, Bruce......I edited it, and think I fixed it......for the record, Bruce did not say that, my quoting came out wrong...

That is the definition of paranoid.

It's very unlikely that I'm going to get hit by a bus today; but it could happen. If that kept me locked up in my house, afraid to go outside, for any reason, that would make me paranoid. There are people that are afraid of swimming in the ocean and would never step foot in it because they think that there is a shark just waiting to gobble them up. They too are paranoid. Some people have a phobia about flying and just won't do it; even though it is statistically the safest way to travel. The definition of PHOBIA is an IRRATIONAL fear of something happening.

"A phobia (from the Greek: φόβος, Phóbos, meaning "fear" or "morbid fear") is, when used in the context of clinical psychology, a type of anxiety disorder, usually defined as a persistent fear of an object or situation in which the sufferer commits to great lengths in avoiding, typically disproportional to the actual danger posed, often being recognized as irrational. In the event the phobia cannot be avoided entirely, the sufferer will endure the situation or object with marked distress and significant interference in social or occupational activities."

So, protecting ones business from the powers that are looking to sue everyone they can get their grubby little hands on, like SC, is being paranoid?? Bruce, I usually agree with the stuff you say because you USUALLY make good points. I can't help thinking right now that you are just interested in yourself and your karaoke disks, regardless of how others want to run their businesses. I would LOVE to see if you have licensing to create your own karaoke songs. If not, you are engaging in copyright infringement, which "COULD" hurt the KJ who plays your stuff.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I will freely admit that I have not sought out any licensing for the tracks that I create for myself. I'm pretty sure that there are literally hundreds of Commercially available karaoke discs out there that never sought any licenses either and just about every KJ in the karaoke buisness has purchased many of them and are still using them without fear of anyone coming to their show to invstigate those particular tracks. If your club is paying their PRO fees, it doesn't matter if to them whether or not I have paid any sync licensing fees for my personal discs. The original artist is highly unlikely to be lurking around the corner looking to take me to court over making ONE of their songs for me only and not for sale to anyone else. People file law suits over MONEY. I make ZERO dollars from my little hobby. NONE!!! Why would anyone want to take me to court for wanting to sing one of their songs? What could they possibly gain? Do you think that they would hire an attorney pay him thousands of dollars to investigate the creation of a single song that was turned into a karaoke track that generated NO DOLLARS?

The way I see it is....you think that Sound Choice has it in for you so you are afraid to admit to anything that MIGHT get their attention. I think that if I showed up at your show and handed you my disc and I wanted to sing one of your favorite songs from that disc; you'd probably let me sing it. You just won't admit to it here because you think that you are # 1 on Sound Choice's most wanted KJ list.

Who would Sound Choice report you to? Are they going to call up Bruce Springsteen or his legal team to fly down to wherever it is that you live because they saw a Springsteen song on teh screen? If they were that annoyed by someone making a homemade track, don't you think they would just send you a cease and desist order first?

If you were running a karaoke retail store and you had hundreds or thousands of discs that were not licensed; do you think that the store would get sued for selling them or would the company that made them be targeted? Has Karaoke.com been shut down for selling Backstage Discs or SGB discs or Music Maestro discs or Top Hits Monthly disc? Those karakoe companies all went out of business and disappeared because someone wasn't getting their fair piece of the pie. The stores that sold the discs are still up and running. If anything, the person or company that made the discs will be taken to court; not the KJ who played a disc that wasn't 100% legal. If I brought into your show a karaoke track of a Bruce Springsteen song, made by Dancing Frog karaoke, and Mister Harrington himself was sitting in the bar; who would he report this "violation" to, and what would be the charge and who would the charge be leveled against? The KJ, the singer, or the guy who created the file? Would Springsteen or his legal people really be concerned with some karaoke singer who asked someone to do him a favor and make a karake track for him? You keep saying to others that SOUND CHOICE is the only karaoke company that seems to give a crap about any of this so why are you concerned about a track that in no way is related to any thing that Sound Choice has ever produced?

If I gave you a disc that had a Sound Choice logo on it; why wouldn't you just stop the disc as soon as you saw the Sound Choice logo and make an announcement that you have a policy of not playing Sound Choice material unless it is on an original Sound Choice disc? I would think that even Mister Harrington would see that you were making every effort to keep from breaking Sound Choice's rules.

Playing a homemade song is no different than playing a SGB song, in my opinion. The only difference is that they went through the trouble to make their product look like it was a legal product to sell by having their labels done in a professional manner. A silk screened label doesn't make a disc legal to sell. If I went through the trouble of having all of my tracks pressed onto discs and labeled to look just like professionally made karaoke discs, and sold them to some on-line karaoke store; plenty of people would be ordering them and they would be using them in their shows all of the time. The only difference now would be that I was making a bunch of money doing it and those people would now be taking me to court to get their fair share FROM ME, not YOU or any other KJ for that matter. That is why so many karaoke manufacturers have gone out of business.... at least in name only. I don't know of anyone at all who has been sued by a publisher because they played a disc that they bought from an online karaoke store or a brick and mortar store that turned out to be less than 100% legal.

Sound Choice is having a Black Friday sale. Why wouldn't you just buy the Gem series for $3500 and put your fears behind you? Then you'd have nothing to worry about from your pals at Sound Choice. They'd get your money and you would get your piece of mind.

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, Bruce Springsteen??? You could forget it anyway. I HATE Bruce Springsteen's music. I would skip right over you. You would NEVER sing that crap at my show.



















Hehe, Kidding, of course.

I object to everything SC is doing to this industry, and their entire system of going after KJs, and for not allowing shifting without an audit, and all the other crap they have done. WHY would I give them my money and buy that damn GEM set?

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Smooth.......it's ok to admit, that you're broke, and you can't afford Sound Choice....... .....you're not alone......

> No, they just aren't worth the trouble.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Actually glad that I work in an area that cares about quality control!

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

Glad I work in an area without a bunch of pompous Karaoke Divas!!

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

What the hell are pampas? Disposable diapers in Boston?

With any business there are those that take it seriously......... and those that don't. There are those that strive for exceptional quality, customer service, customer satisfaction.........and those that don't. There are those who will invest in their business in an effort to provide a quality experience for their customers...........and those that won't.

I believe that my choice to include Sound Choice as a part of my karaoke library and for the benefit of my customers is indicative of my desire to provide quality and a great experience to my customers. My customers appreciate it and I have many, many people (regulars as well as first timers) that specifically request Sound Choice. By making it available I satisfy their request and help guarantee a return customer.

I believe that those that choose to exclude Sound Choice because it is a hassle, or they are paranoid, or they don't like Kurt Slep, or they are too cheap to pay a very small audit fee, or any other myriad of reasons, simply inhibit their own business and don't have the best interests of their customers in mind (customers = singers AND venue owners).

All other things being equal, you will never convince me that your show has better quality music, better selection, or is more desirable to go to because you exclude Sound Choice from your library. Again, all things being equal, any show that offers Sound Choice will have an advantage over a show that does not.

All other things being equal, I can absolutely market my shows as having superior quality music, a better selection, and being more desirable to go to because I use Sound Choice.

-Chris

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-Chris

I have roughly 295 SC discs, plus or minus a couple dups....

and i use everyone, and i play sound choice first before any other's, it's all ripped and on my external......

i have no issue with playing them or even worry about getting named in a lawsuit cause i am 1:1 and can back it up!

i wish i would get named in a lawsuit as i now im probably the only host in my area that's legit that runs off a computer..... there is one other host that runs cdg's and everyone else is pirating the music here in "LEWISTON, IDAHO & CLARKSTON, WASHINGTON" boarder towns. and to get a summons to appear would be great cause then i would no i'd be getting a lot more work here.

It's only the pirates running the karaoke that don't own the disc's that are paying the price whether it's a settlement or a judgement....

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It's all good!

Divas are one thing, people that like to sing well to good tracks are another. Glad you don't work in the area as well !

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

Hey MightyWiz...

Why would you wait for a summons?

Why not contact SC and get permission to use your shifted files?

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Never the same show twice!

If you get named, the audit fee goes up to $500 instead of $150 for pre-suit audit. With 259 discs, the pre-suit audit fee is worth it. I only have 38 SC discs. It's not worth it for me to pay the audit fee. For you it's 58 cents per disc. For me it would be $3.90 per disc.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

And Harrington Law stated if you have a few discs the cost would be adjusted. Did you ask him what the cost for your 38 discs would be? If not, you should.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I have a few less than that, but would be interested in hearing the answer. Asking myself would be a waste of time as they know I have neither reason (being OMD-based) nor intention to be audited.

However, I think the answer would be of interest to those with few of their discs who have media shifted...

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I only had 15 of their discs when I had my audit but I got mine done when it was free.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.