Karaoke Forums

Crap, Lonman, why'd ya hafta go an bring facts into it?

Nice untwist.

Regardless of the disposition of these cases, they are OLD NEWS. They've been settled.

SC has responded very quickly when notified of "karaoke clubs" and SCDG sales being offered.
They are going after other targets as well. The difference is that these targets involving counterfeit sales of their products must involve the authorities as the sale of the product makes it a criminal offense in addition to the civil violations of copyright/trademark infringement. The KJ who uses the counterfeit product can be dealt with directly through the courts with or without involving the various law enforcement agencies.

The accusation that SC isn't going after anyone other than KJ's & venues is patently false. (see the thread "a little infringer".)

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Never the same show twice!

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Right! He ended up paying. Exactly what I said.

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

Yes, but he was not found guilty of copyright infringement and ordered by the court to pay these royalties as damages. Harrison was ordered by the court.

Big difference.

Percy Sledge sued Michael Bolton as well and won for "When A Man Loves A Woman." Bolton fought it and lost.

Yes he settled out of court to avoid going to court.

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

Yes, "in addition to" so it does not "must involve the authorities" at all. They would like it to since they will get really NO money by pursuing these cases on their civil merits alone. It's a great excuse for not doing much if you'll swallow it though.

Well, this has certainly been a fun read. However, a couple of things to add...

The OP was about a pirate distributor, not a KJ. The site given for "educational" purposes referenced the KJ policy from SC. Two different things.

As for PAST transgressions:
I'm more interested in what's happening now. Kurt has stated that SC's only licensing is UK issued. That agency has stated that their licensing authority does not extend to the U.S. and it's territories. Therefore, I expect SC to get hit with more lawsuits from the publishers/owners in the near future. I would seriously reconsider hitching my wagon to that star..

I repeatedly asked CB about 9 particular songs ( which I own on disc) from the list contained in the permanent injunction against production in regard to current status- they refused to reply.

That's happening NOW.

I will be thrilled if and when they go after pirate distributors in full force, but I don't see it happening in the near future. Not only is there no profit for them, but the need to include law enforcement agencies would mean dealing with THEIR priorities as well.

Back to the OP for a sec. If one were to ask SC to supply evidence, as shown in the sample letter, the only thing they could come up with is the display of the logo from a PC source- a technicality of the logo displayed with a transferred file. Yet the only thing that they look for in an audit ( read: search for more evidence) is whether a host is "1:1". How would this make any difference in regard to a "Trademark Infringement" case? The logo would STILL be displayed on a shifted file. However, they will accept protection money in return for letting the TI case slip- but remember, that's just SC. Don't fool yourself into thinking you would be safe from others. As a matter of fact, don't do it with SC either- their "Covenant Not To Sue" isn't legally binding for them.

This is what I mean about using "Trademark Infringement" as a hook. They will never prosecute in court on this of course- their logo isn't supposed to be there without U.S. licensing in the first place. In the legal sense, it's invisible.


EDIT: BTW, I flag those sites as well...

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Joe, in a legal sense, you have no basis to make that statement. You are not an attorney nor are you a karaoke manufacturer and neither a publisher/rights-holder as well.

No court case, no judge's opinion, no attorney's contention, no precedence, no statute, no judgement.

Nothing, "in a legal sense".

Not that your opinion doesn't make sense, just that it truly does not speak to the legality of the issues with any authority.

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Never the same show twice!

Actually, this is a part of the debate. My IP lawyers ( from my design engineering days and after 30 years my buddies as well) are the ones I asked, and I trust their answers. They tell me it's a gimme. Hence, my "legal" comment.

However, other respected posters here have said that they checked their own sources, and that they disagree...

I guess we'll never know unless it goes through the courts... Kind of an "agree to disagree" thing.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Chip you argue for the sake of arguing. Ford and Chrysler were successfully sued by Robert Kearns for Patent infringement. They basically stole his intermittent wipers. Between them they paid out over $40Million. So are you saying that anyone with intermittent wipers are in possession of stolen goods or Patent infringement? No, because it was settled in court (and in other cases out of court) and payments were made. Just like what you are accusing SC and other manufacturers of doing. They did wrong, settled, and paid. End of story.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

You missed the point:

It still doesn't negate the fact that they knowingly operated on the basis that they would willfully steal until/unless they got caught.

Do you operate your business that way? Do you feel it is simply "the way business is done?" You think it's okay to support companies that operate this way?

By your standards, you shouldn't have a problem with the pirates that willfully steal as well.... they're simply "doing business until they get caught"
just like Ford, Chrysler, Sound Choice and Chartbuster.

Right?

Almost nothing you've said here is true. Been to MegaMedia.cz.cc lately? We've chased him off his last three hosts, from Illinois to Germany. He's prepping a new host at freehostingcloud.com and when the site goes back up, we'll take him down there too. (Google is tagging his site right now as an attack site hosting malware, which doesn't surprise me either) Tried KaraokePlay.com? It is no more. Macksplace.webs.com? History. If GoDaddy didn't make us jump through a million flaming hoops MashPodge would be toast already as well. We'll get them in a few days when we've finished compiling everything.

Craigslist sellers are a harder target - there's no one at the wheel at that organization, so it's not like you can report violations to an actual person. Flagging works as a crowdsourced solution, but it requires a dedicated subset of flaggers, coordinated on specific listing targets. We have a software solution but are still building the network out, so it's slow going for now. Once we have enough nodes functioning we will be able to take new listings down daily from a central console.

The FBI has been "building a case" against one particular high-volume seller for over five years. He's still selling, even though they were handed enough evidence to get an indictment from day one. We aren't holding our breath.

Are you a part of the solution? Then come up with some innovative ideas on how to stem the tide. Know a site that's selling loaded hard drives? Send me the darn URL. We can and do work to take them down, and we are mostly successful. Far from doing "nothing", we devote a significant amount of resources to these problems.

Thank you.

C. Staley a part of the solution?

BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAAAAAA!

I thinks it's funny to ask him without finding out how much he charges to offer constructive advice.

He's been asked many times for his input on a solution. He's stated many times he won't offer that for free.

I mean it, I really did laugh out loud when I read that.

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Never the same show twice!

Not helpful.. C'mon. Please?

Note to CB: In regard to Internet distributors, keep doing what you can. Just so you know, I do the flagging bit too.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I don't bother with flagging the hard drive sellers. I report copyright infringement to abuse@craigslist.org. The listings are usually down within hours. Craigslist specifically states to report to that address for criminal violations.

I suggest that y'all use it, and not resort to botnets, which could be construed as a criminal DOS attack against Craigslist.

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Dave's not here.

Will do, Moon. Thanks.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Good to know...thanks!!

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My statements, opinions and conclusions are based on my own personal experiences, observations, research and/or just my own $.02. I'm not a "cheerleader", but that doesn't make me a Pirate.