Karaoke Forums

Easy enough to answer - call Customs and ask them.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Not if you declared and paid the necessary duty on them. And that goes for ANY purchase for that matter.

Well, actually, Customs and Border Protection does enforce intellectual property infringement by seizing infringing goods at the border. I have not seen any guidance on how they are handling implementation after Kirtsaeng. You could certainly argue it with the CBP officer, and you might have to sue to get your property released if it was seized. If it is a large purchase, you would probably benefit from the services of a customs broker.

After thinking about it Mexico is a lot closer, and not on the do not sell to list. I could order them have them sent to Mexico and then have my friend mail them to me. HMMMM just a thought!

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I like everyone when I first meet them. If you don't like me that's not my problem it's YOURS!
A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet

Last time I checked Mexico is a foreign country and the package would still have to go through Customs.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

and immigrants have to go through customs and the border gate as well.

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

Thanks for your kind words Danny. BTW- you ever notice that I can make myself understood by most without being insulting? Just saying...

Anyway, if you actually read and comprehended my rebuke to KJflorida, I NEVER SAID THAT ONE COULDN'T DO AS YOU HAVE DESCRIBED. You may wish to go back and re-read / absorb the post. What I said was that the impression given by KJFLORIDA'S post was that one couldn't do as you described.

In other words, you named the wrong person for "not knowing squat"

That being said, you STILL specify U.S. DISCS, just as he did.

Same impression given. Must be disc. Must be U.S. licensed.

By all means, add a link to the documentation regarding GEMS ( licensed only overseas) being "grandfathered in" so the situation can be clarified.

In other words, you blamed me for the impression the KJflorida gave, and then you gave the same impression.

As for ME, and MY opinion: I will continue to play and use every single original manufactures' disc that I have purchased in good faith, whether it be DK, CB, SC, MM, SPC, KJ Tools,Zoom, Legends, Capitol (Australia) or whatever- because it is not now, nor has it EVER been the KJ's responsibility to verify the licensing of the manufacturer that produced and sold the product. THAT responsibility and liability lay firmly on the mfrs.' shoulders, and anyone who tells you differently "doesn't know squat" either.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

The new Supreme Court ruling in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons might change your mind Dan and the manus about the legality of using foreign purchased material in a karaoke show. That you can't stop the import of properly licensed and purchased foreign product, even from Canada. Using the doctrine of first-sale, "the legal purchaser of a copyright-protected item may dispose of that property, anyway he or she sees fit". In this particular case Supap Kirsaeng, imported texbooks lawfully printed overseas by a U.S. publisher and sold them on E bay. It would seem that the Supreme Court supports your opinion Joe. Going a little further I think that this ruling will also hurt the manus current legal process suits. It would be interesting to see how the doctrine of first-sale does against the manus right to prevent hosts from shifting materal purchased, since the purchaser has the right to dispose of aka use the product anyway he or she see fit. Here is the link for the new decision.


http://www.forbes.com/sites/garyshapiro ... iley-sons/

This decision I feel clearly puts the burden back on the shoulders of the manus to prove that the product in question was not legally purchased in the first place. This should also offer a degree of protection to the hosts that have their original discs and have proof of purchase. It also implies a bit of freedom on the purchaser's side, as to how to dispose of the purchased legal material.

REALLY? I wish Mr. Obama and his cronies would realize this and actually make the border secure

Thousands of people cross the boarder here every day, many without ever being stopped as they do it every day and the border agents know them by sight and just let them pass. There are people that live on our side and work on the Mexican side and transverse everyday. The drug cartels have zeroed in on these people and plant drugs on their car to be retrieved later as they know the border agents won't stop these cars or search them. Commercial rigs cross every day with tons of drugs and most don't get caught. So do you really think they are going to stop and search for Karaoke discs? I don't think so and even if they did find them they wouldn't know what to do about it.

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I like everyone when I first meet them. If you don't like me that's not my problem it's YOURS!
A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet

You mean going a "little further" into conjecture and ridiculousness. The doctrine of first sale specifies that the purchaser may use or dispose of a legally purchased item in a legal manner, as in NOT in violation of anyone else's rights. It does not give the purchaser ANY of the trademark or copyrights associated with the IP content or any other rights reserved by the mfr or any other entity that has claim.



The first sentence of this last quote illustrates that you have yet to grasp what the audit process was developed to address.
The degree of protection for hosts that have their original discs and proof of purchase has always been implicit and based on exactly those conditions.
This decision is irrelevant to media-shifting and/or piracy.

Personally, I am relieved to see that my take on the import situation was upheld by no less than SCOTUS.

I know you'll probably miss it but sometime after October (when you retire), the world is going to continue to develop a "global" economy. It is inevitable.

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Never the same show twice!

Lone, you are the one who said you'd have your friend MAIL the discs, which have to go through CUSTOMS. As for your statement that Customs wouldn't know what they are or what to do with them, only shows your naivety.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Tim I think you are confusing the Lone Wolf with The Lone Ranger.

From the way I read the decision handed down "The legal purchaser of a copyright-protected item may dispose of that property anyway he or she sees fit". It makes no mention of the rights of the original holder, that was taken care of at the time of the sale. You have to remember without this first-sale doctrine there would have been no VCR machine, and no video rental industry. Hollywood would have been able to charge once again for the product rights which were paid for at the time of the first sale. What the manus are trying to do is claim rights to material, for which the rights have already been paid for once. Also they are trying to blockade this country from legal foreign exports which Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons says they can't do. It will take a few test cases to see if the first-sale doctrine trumps the claims of the manus as to their right to control how the product is used after the first sale.
What audit system as far as CB is concerned they are not going to resume audits, at least that is what I have been told. SC may still do audits but currently of the two manus using the legal process, they are the only ones still offering an audit service. I think the people at the summit are the ones that need to come to grips with the "global economy", that is if they ever get out of Tennessee.

The GEM series was meant to play on computer from the get go. With proper Authorization from the karaoke labels, one can import off of CD+G discs and still be safe. Downloads, with the exception of All Star and Digitrax, are a grey matter that one is taking a risk on.

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

The rights in question have not been "paid" for. The rights, such as copyrights are RESERVED! That is the whole point with regard to the mfr's. The mfr's pay for the right to copy the publishers' works.

The SCOTUS decision is saying you can't license in one country under certain terms and then block legally purchased items from being re-sold.

That decision does not address COPYRIGHT violations at all. It addresses trade issues regarding imports, legal imports from countries that produce licensed product.

Check again. You "paid" for certain rights. You did not pay for nor did you receive license for many others. Also, it wasn't just "Hollywood" but the big TV networks were involved. They were concerned that home taping would kill advertisers' confidence because J.Q. Public could just FF right through the ads. Now they are making more money by streaming all those old shows and leaving out the advertising.

Your history research should show you that indeed, the licensing rights and copyrights were the the issues being decided in those cases regarding VHS. Those decisions have carried over into CD, DVD and now are being adapted to cover digital media as well.

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Never the same show twice!

i don't see what you are getting at here. Zoom paid for the rights to make and sell a karaoke version of Tom Petty's Last Dance. i buy it and use it, what rights are not being paid?

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

I just want to know what is the difference between an SBI track being sold by SBI as a download on their website and an SBI track being sold through Digitrax?

Also, if Digitrax is so great, why can't you surf the site without having to sign your name and email address to enter? I took a look the other day and you can't look at anything without some type of login. Really, until I'm ready to buy, you don't need my name, email and first born child, do you?

I have been around karaoke for a long time, have a large legally purchased set of SC disks. I used to have 3 legal libraries back in the day when everyone wanted to work for us, so we could run 3 shows per night, because we were one of the few games in town. No one in my town is legal for one reason or another. Today, I combined all the libraries into one and I operate a couple of shows a month. I can't afford what Digitrax is offering nor can I afford to be audited every year to the tune of whatever the dollar amount is now. I can remember paying $30 a disk. All this crap about what's legal and what's not just gives me a headache! I kept hoping I could keep my head above water long enough for this to be sorted out, but geez!

I have to agree...if I paid for it and it was legally produced, no matter where, and the copyright holder got paid, WHY CAN'T I PLAY IT! What difference does it make if I downloaded it from a legal site or ripped it from a disk? Please, tell me why our laws are that stupid!

I just needed to rant. Thank you.

It is not that our laws are stupid, it is just that technology advances so rapidly the legal system has a hard time keeping up. I hope the first-sale doctrine if applied will start to turn things back to a less confused state in the commercial karaoke industry. It will restore some sense of balance and common sense to this whole question of copyright infringement. If the host has purchased his product and the copyright holder has been paid, then that should be the end of transaction. The purchaser then should be able to use that product as he or she sees fit. If the manu decides that a host is using product not paid for, the burden of the proof should fall on the plaintiff. It should not fall on the defendant. If first-sale doctrine protects the purchaser in regards to reselling the product, it should also cover the purchaser if he decides to modify the product for his own business use, such as shifting it to a PC. As long as the original rights holder has been paid there should be no problem. What SC and CB/DTE are trying to do is create a two manu cartel where they share a monopoly on karaoke music product, trying to shut out foreign competition. With the goal the hosts will be forced either to purchase product or subscribe to a service, in either case they would be paying again for product already purchased.

Excuse me this case involved John Wiley & Sons as the plaintiffs their complaint was basically that their copyright had be violated aka infringed upon by Kirtsaeng. Does that sound familiar? That the first-sale doctrine applied in this case and protected Kirtsaeng, he did not violate copyright because the material is legal and copyright had been satisfied with the foreign purchase.

So.....according to Mr Harrington, you US guys are stuck using discs.....I'm glad I'm in the UK where the law is simple! And I feel sorry that the world leader in the field of Karaoke (the USA) is stuck in the 1990's due to archaic copyright law whilst Europe motors on and embraces digital karaoke.

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