Karaoke Forums

Business leases/licenses are not for everyone, on this we agree....(again!)

$33 a year "forever" is not a big deal for my business. For some people I am sure it is a deal breaker.

Don't forget the yearly audit fees.

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Birdofsong

I have no idea what you are talking about. I have not and do not expect to pay any "yearly audit fees" with my GEM set, and I am well into year two. Perhaps things are different if you choose the "$7500" option though.

wait..........buy the GEM and you no longer need to get audited?
that makes no sense.

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

Makes perfect sense! A Manf. has a known base of karaoke discs buyers with discs the Manf. says are illegal to media shift. Then they make the GEM series that are media shifted already and provoke the same buyers into purchasing the GEM series or face a yearly audit or lawsuit! Ever see "The Sting"? Now you can live it!

buy a GEM and the rest of my SC discs that did not get into that series are freebies? what a deal.

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

And where is the proof that this has been done? By proof, I don't mean a Judge's ruling that it be done. Where is the proof that are all these KJs have actually turned over their hard drives to have all illegally owned tracks destroyed?

I believe that if this were actually happening, the word would have spread like wildfire by now.

It really doesn't matter if the drives get destroyed or not. It is all readily accessible via the Internet or a buddy. The day after the drive gets destroyed (if, in fact, they ever do) they can be replaced with as much or more content.

I have been doing some poking around in the last couple days and it appears that there are many iRC channels that operate out in the open. Most outside of the US and very difficult for US authorities to do much about.

There are a few others that operate under the radar, but still easy enough to find.

As long as these exist (and they always will. There just isn't anyway to effectively eradicate them) then the moment new tracks are released they will be on the net.

The scripts for managing the channels have evolved tremendously in the last 7-8 years. It is brain dead simple for ANYONE to get connected and grab as much as they want and automate much of the process.

-Chris

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-Chris

Of course they can, criminals do it all the time. The day after a judge tells a drunk & disorderly convict to stay out of bars for a year he could go right back at it. Or the day after a judge tells the stalker not to go within 500 feet of a person, they could go to their neighborhood.

BUT. If you get caught a second time and have to face that judge again for the same offense, you can bet things will be very different, right Timberblea?

What judge? You have to go to court to face a judge! These people are making a deal with SC so they never go to court.

True. And if you break the settlement contract, who will you be seeing when sued for breach of contract? A judge.

Maybe and maybe not but for a 1st not a 2nd time and for a totally different reason if sued for "breach of contract"!

The point, is that people are insinuating that the purge of all pirate music in the settlement agreement is silly because the pirate can just download & reload the next day as if nothing happened. "It really doesn't matter" was the quote.

I am pointing out that doing so exposes the pirate to even more lawsuits, so the original insinuation is not as benign as it may appear. It really DOES matter.

But we are talking about those with a proven tendency to pirate music. And once Soundchoice has milked them dry with the Gem purchase they will be moving on to the next teat with no reason to waste resources on any further policing.

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KNOW THYSELF

Then one would think that those proven pirate tendencies would surface when handed a 6000 song GEM set, yet to date none have been torrented, on usenet, etc.

Three words - Multiple Hard Drives - Put Sound Choice material on one, pirated material on the other - how simple is that to do?

Name one soundchoice song on that gem set that isn't availble in the pirate world.

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KNOW THYSELF

GEM sets are internally serialized and can be revoked if requirements aren't followed. Be ashame to loose the set after paying all that money or worse have them financed making payments on what you no longer have! Anyway more non-serialized SC songs exist in the pirate world than 6000.

The MANUs had the opportunity to protect their product from the start. They chose NOT TO. The MANUs are the CAUSE of their own demise. The Pirates are the EFFECT.

A pirate is a pirate and that runs pretty deep for a long time.

I have no reason to believe that getting hit by the Sound Choice lawsuit shotgun changes the mentality of the pirate. There will be a few that may go completely above board, but I imagine the rest will realize the following -

Note - this is a mix of opinion, speculation and prediction on my part.

1) Pirate mentality changes very slowly over a long period of time In all the time I have worked in the computer industry, I have yet to find any sizable number of pirates that gave up piracy cold turkey. a) Economically they are accustomed to getting a ton of useful stuff for free. b) It is just too flipping easy.

2) For the time being I don't believe Sound Choice is going to expend much effort on those that have settled. To "investigate" a show that has already settled, they will have to dedicate a LOT more time/resources to TRULY investigate because they would have to catch someone playing tracks outside of the GEM 6000. Statistically that will happen a lot less often. That will involve a lot more time and it instantly becomes less fruitful for SC.

That said - Sound Choice's current revenue stream from lawsuits will eventually dry up. They will have to devise some other tactic and that is when I could see them coming back and taking a closer look at the settlers.

3) It is only Sound Choice. Stellar - seems to be taking a hands off approach (Here is the CAP agreement, sign up if you want). Chartbuster - I have heard rumors of them pursuing KJ's but I have yet to see much talk about it. It certainly isn't as widespread or noteworthy as SC's actions.

Then there are all of the others that have given basically zero indication of pursuing action. Sound Choice may have gotten them but odds are no one else will.

Thus, keep the Jolly Roger raised high and proud.

So I stand behind my "It really doesn't matter" statement.

Final prediction - It is only a matter of time before the pirates set up a private pirate cloud with custom software that allows a brain dead simple means of streaming/caching karaoke directly from the private pirate cloud.

If the karaoke manufacturers really want to make money and protect FUTURE IP, they need to give up on physical media all together and go to the cloud.

-Chris

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-Chris