Karaoke Forums

If you don't submit to their demand for the audit; you are then threatened with the law suit for non compliance to their demand for the audit.

Let's not try to bullsh*t each other.

No matter how much you complain about it, the disc owner has absolutely no right under the law, without permission, to copy the track embedded on the disc. Sorry.

For the record - I do not agree with this statement.

-Chris

I meant to say to use in a commercial setting.

I feel strongly THAT copyright belongs to the original copyright holder and SC does not have authority to authorize or not authorize copies.

They why is there only ONE company insisting on these audits? Or as some judges are now calling them: SHAKEDOWN LAWSUITS?

The audit and the law suit are two sides of the same coin. If you don't submit to their demand for the audit; you are then threatened with the law suit for non compliance to their demand for the audit.

Let's not try to bullsh*t each other. Their business plan is to force every one of their customers to at least pay them $150 to avoid being sued.

If you can't pass the audit, they basically say that they will allow you to use their product for a small charge of $5,000 to avoid the possibilty of losing your shirt in a court room. Their viability is based purely on people's fear of losing everything so they settle for buying a GEM Series.

I still do not agree, at least where SC is concerned. I feel strongly THAT copyright belongs to the original copyright holder and SC does not have authority to authorize or not authorize copies. A huge problem here is SC says they have successfully defeated pirates in court. What they really have done is won some cases on a weird Trademark argument. And the reason for that is?

For the record - I do not agree with this statement.

-Chris

[SC's "business plan" is (a) to sell music

ONE judge, as opposed to a couple of dozen other judges who have seen no problem with these suits at all, and who have routinely denied motions to dismiss, granted default judgments, and issued verdicts for Slep-Tone at trial.

...SC never allows operators to use music for which they do not own (or license) discs. If you fail an audit, you must destroy the tracks you do not have discs for, at a minimum. That may leave you with some material (if you have discs) or no or very little material (if you don't). Regardless, you have to pay something to address the past infringement, and if you don't have enough legal material to go forward, you have to acquire it...

cueball
Post subject: Re: Introduction
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 7:24 pm


cueball wrote:
How do you go about enforcing the destruction of the counterfeit material? Also, is this just SC material that you are referring to, or every single Manufacturer's brand (Music Maestro, All Hits, Priddis, Pioneer, DK, Dangerous, Lost Classic, Back Stage Karaoke, Performance Tracks, Top Hits Monthly (Panorama Music, which is now out of the Karaoke business), JVC, Standing Ovation, Sound Images, etc...) that a KJ may have stored in his/her HD that he/she doesn't have a disc to match it up to?

HarringtonLaw wrote:
We only enforce for SC, although we recommend that settling defendants get legal with all manufacturers. Enforcement is through a contractual agreement, with inspection to verify.

Cueball wrote:
And where do all of these out-of-the-business manufacturers come into play in all of this (I named quite a few of them above)?

So, if I am understanding this correctly, you ONLY care about SC's product, and NOTHING else. Once you audit a KJ who has 120K plus songs loaded illegally on a Harddrive, all you oversee is that the SC material in question is deleted (for argument's sake, let's say that's about 40K songs). Now the said "Pirate" agrees to purchase/lease SC's GEM series (consisting of about 6K songs), and he still has 80K plus songs left on his Harddrive. Am I missing something???????????

HarringtonLaw wrote:
To the contrary, we care a great deal about the user deleting unlicensed material, and we lean on settling defendants to delete unlicensed material, but we don't have standing to require that in court.

Cueball wrote:
In other words, you can't make them delete anything from their Hardrives except for SC's songs.

first: pay for and conduct an audit for certification
second: report pirates to SC
third: buy safe harbor packets from SC
fourth: take those packets to venues to help inform them
fifth: duck and run when the owners throw things
sixth: bring the packets to fellow hosts to help inform them
seventh: walk away as they laugh at you
eighth: repeat report of pirates to SC
ninth: repeat entire process for two years with 0 venues or hosts caring or obtaining new shows
tenth: remove all mention of SC in advertising and reap rewards of more new shows than you can handle.

worked for me.

Cue - I think you know full well that Harrington is referring only to SC material.

-Chris

I misunderstood the intent of your post. But now that I do understand it is simple enough to point out that all SC is allowed to enforce is their own material. They can't enforce the rights of the other manufacturers any more than Microsoft can enforce the rights of Apple.

HarringtonLaw wrote:
To the contrary, we care a great deal about the user deleting unlicensed material, and we lean on settling defendants to delete unlicensed material, but we don't have standing to require that in court.