Karaoke Forums

A couple of different threads are touching on this from different angles, so I thought I would start a new one approaching the conversation. There seems to be a consensus that making CD backups has been an accepted practice, whereas backup to hard drive is not, at least without having to jump through hoops. If I understand the definition properly, it seems that a "media shift" would be ANYTHING other than the media it came on from the manufacturer, whether it is the same type of media or not. So, if that is the case, then either all shifts are illegal or all shifts are not. For this purpose (which seems odd to have to define), "illegal" means "against the law", not "against one company's policy"--I do not believe these to be interchangeable. Surely it can be found for a company's policy to itself be illegal.

The argument has been made that preservation and use of shifted material can result in a loss of revenue for manufacturers. This concept has been put to the test in nearly every industry since the beginning of industry. Almost without exception, manufactures have to play catch-up when changes, improvements, technological advances, etc., are made that make a product more useful, productive, etc., in order to retain control of how their product is used. If these uses are accomplished outside of the protections in place, then it can often take years to properly get these uses redefines within these protections, and much longer if they are not pursued in a timely fashion.

This being the case, I personally do not see that the difference of the use of backups via CD and using a hard drive (which essentially is a self-enclosed disc and player mechanism, similar in function and design as a CD and CD player, except with much higher capacity). Both can result in the same amount of "losses" to a manufacturer.

As far as resolving revenue "losses", I can relate this to a field I DO have experience with: the automotive industry. I know that aftermarket parts manufacturers and remanufacturers have to pay certain amounts to the original manufacturers in order to do so. Is that amount anywhere near the 40% that has been proposed to accomplish extended use of karaoke material? I doubt it seriously. I imagine it is possible that the cost of initiating karaoke as an industry may have been overinflated from the beginning. I will not speculate on the actual source(s) of this possibility. If we assume the overinflating to initiate the karaoke industry did occur, and the consuming public accepted it by purchasing, then given the current state of things, perhaps it never should have started. However, much like the music industry, the acceptance and adjustment to much lower profit margins is an inevitability, if it is to survive. Regulating a product that is no longer perpetually degradable (digital) is indeed a challenge, but there is no doubt that it is here to stay, and for the time being, so are the challenges...

Should be dealt with in the same manner because where I am years ago before everyone had computers, there were several hosts duplicating and trading or selling copies of what they had.

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

I see backing up to and using a cdr for a show absolutely no different than backing to a hard drive and using in a show. If an ODB host is using burned discs, they should fall under the same audit requirements as a hard drive user since (unless actually using the original discs) there is no way to tell that those original discs exist & are just using a set of burned discs only.

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I am sorry for your loss However, for the point of this conversation, it is relating to shifting material from original to a second source for use by the original purchaser...

If this were to become the accepted position, would this not open up ANYONE running a karaoke show to being pursued in litigation? And if this pursuit began, would that not draw into question the entire process in general (of course we all know it already has)?

If you are using burned discs over original media then it falls into the exact same scenario. The whole premise of the lawsuits now are making unauthorized copies to a computer (under trademark infringement) - an unauthorized copy to a cdr is no different (and still trademark infringement). Unauthorized is just that! So yes I would expect that unless the original discs are being used, and burn disc user should fall under the same scrutiny!
So if the audit is simply to clear up if you actually own each disc that you shifted to hard drive, it would stand to reason to audit to make sure one owned each disc that they shifted to cdr.

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

And from what I have been able to determine, the only two ways this can be accomplished is by: 1) volunteering yourself for your materials to be examined; and 2) being subjected to a lawsuit, forcing said examination........

That would be correct, unless there is a third way you are keeping secret.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I agree! Just like anyone else who wants to shift their material from the original media source.

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

Wouldn't that be the same as this?


Bazingga, are you asking, "What if you went through an audit process with your CDG to CDR (back-up discs), is it ok to now shift them to a SCDG format?" I would think that if you did this, you would have to destroy your CDR's, since the SCDG's would now be your back-ups of the CDR's. Does an SCDG physically look any different from a CDR?

I will sidestep the obvious unnecessary nature of that comment, other than to say that the point is that subjecting one's self-employed business to this much scrutiny from a manufacturer on the scale that would be attempted on a civil level will always have mixed results, and certainly would require activity that the average business shouldn't just stand still for...

wow....
back in perspective guys..........
no company in the entire music industry is suing or harassing any KJ for copying MUSIC to another medium.
no company in the entire music industry is suing or harassing any KJ for copying LYRICS to another medium
one company in the entire music industry is suing and harassing KJ's for copying their logo to another medium.


correct, and neither does any company in the entire music industry, go ahead and do it....save one.


possibly, yes. however it is not only not the accepted position, it is the position of only one small company in the world. would you be worried about the position YUGO may have on automobile usage and think it would become the accepted position?


correct, and the accepted scenario in the entire music industry save one company is go ahead.

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

I had to laugh at this.

This would only be an apt analogy if 50% or more of the cars people actually drove were Yugos.

Different people buy different cars for different reasons, they usually divide between practical and emotional. The first question of any car is if it runs, it's not much use if it sits. In the case of YUGO and SC they are both discontinued products, since SC has failed to meet it's own deadlines concerning new product or even rehashing it's old product. SC wants to stimulate sales for it's product, that is done by improving the product and modernizing it two things SC has failed to do. To compensate for their failures they have decided to resort to a legal process to create demand for their product. This would be like Henry Ford suing customers to keep buying the Model T instead of going to the next step and making a Model A. This whole process could backfire and cause potential customers to reject the product line altogether, or boycott the product. Have a legal day.

Speculation. Fabrication. Fiction. Completely made up from thin air.

You could not possibly know what the Sound Choice business plan is. You don't even appear to understand at all everything how to "stimulate sales for a product" instead presuming to apply your own limited qualifications. You certainly don't know if Sound Choice has succeeded or failed on that account. By not knowing if that is true or not your next declaration is patently false and completely made up.

You state these things as if they are facts when it is only speculation, conjecture, and in my opinion intentional false statements (lies) to cause harm to Sound Choice. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt because I think you are ignorant of the facts. But since you have been called out for this behavior many times, I don't think ignorance is a factor any longer. But just in case.....

Lies born from ignorance can be forgiven if the speaker makes an attempt to open mindedly educate themselves.

Please try. Otherwise, you are simply a liar.

-Chris

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-Chris

I'm not sure how that type of audit would work.... Would they have to play every single track on the SCDG to make sure that there's nothing else on it? Or, is there some kind of index within the disc, that would show the list of what tracks are on that disc?

That being said, and assuming you went through a successful audit, I don't see why not. Basically, you're saying that you would have proven you are 1:1 by getting audited. In the audit, you would have shown all your original discs, and all of the SCDGs (your backups) that would correspond track for track with your originals. Using your SCDGs instead of the originals would be the equivalent of a PC based KJ using his/her Hard Drive instead of the original discs.

i wish i could remember who had it on here, but Kurt did say something about stimulating sales through enforcement at i think it was the last conference in LV. this one is not from this air.

EDIT:
found it, it was Jim
"What he said was that lawsuits are a good tool for driving sales. As an enforcement tool, lawsuits drive sales by encouraging pirate operators to buy their music to get legal."

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

Hey Chris, i watched the LAW & ORDER marathon last week on TBS too!

...way to try and channel Jim.....

I stand by my statement.

-Chris

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-Chris

just razzing you Chris, but i also remember someone quoting Kurt in that manner. I could be wrong.