Karaoke Forums

If a SC audit dude told me I had some counterfeit cdgs, I just couldn't take his word for it. Of course, if he showed me something on the disks, that was unmistakenly the work of a pirate, then I guess I would believe him. I've gotten bills from the bank, and had retailers & gas station attendents tell me a bill was fake. Taken such bill back to the bank, and told whoever told you that was nutso(didn't use that word.. ).
There'd be only a few worth conterfeiting anyway, with 8125 being at the top of the short list.

so almost all disc's with a printed paper label stuck to them are counterfit, the only acception is some older priddis disc when they made the change from pressed disc's to cdr's they used printed paper labels (I have 2 of these disc's and i called priddis and verified they are are legal).

the printing on the label is crisp and clear, not like a scanned label and blurry.

as far as i know priddis is the only company that used paper labels.

also some disc's that have an ink printed on the normal surface of the disc. you will need a receipt for purchase of these disc's.

but remember your only dealing with sound choice, charbusterkaraoke for an actual audit so paper labels on those disc are what you need to worry about.

i did a recent purchase of about 1400 disc's and ended up throwing out about 150+ disc's with paper labels (any brand didn't care). i bought a lot of almost 1400 disc's and 1201 is what i had left after looking at them all. as i didn't have the orginal proof of purchase receipts for them.

what really sucked i thought i was getting an entire set of dk original series and all but 2 of the disc's were paper lablels.

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It's all good!

Mighty, don't know where that came from, but paper labels are, and have been, commonly used in the industry. Chartbuster comes to mind- mostly paper as of late.. Legends did both as well, as did MM. As a matter of fact, I am under the understanding that lately CB is actually sending out discs with black and white labels that look like burns. I believe these discs are made to customer order rather than stocked. If this is true, I won't use them.

On the other hand, being screened does not make a disc an original either. I'v seen fakes. A screening machine is not all that expensive- at least not so much so that one couldn't make a profit selling the discs.

One way to check is to look for the manufacturers' code lasered into the inner ring of the disc. ( Of course, if you see something like "Sanyo" or "Staples" there you can be fairly certain it's a counterfeit. )

Also, checking registration and positioning of the print can be a giveaway.

The paper labeled Karaoke Kurrents has been counterfeited all over the place, mostly with single color labels using a comic font for the track listings. They changed from their original label that included a photo graphic of a man singing into a mic to a very hard to reproduce label that contains close registration, phantom print, as well as detailed and graduated color changes. This would be the one with the 5 singing notes ( red, yellow, green, lavender, and a raised blue/black) singing into an extremely detailed Elvis mic on a graduated color background containing phantom printed music lines, lights, etc...

Virtually impossible to copy exactly. I used to work for a label company that did work for GPOs (government printing offices). A good label can be made fairly secure, at least in terms of copiers available to the consumer.


Not all originals are screened discs, and many originals have more than one version of label, as companies do make changes from time to time.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

you are wrong, they are white printable disc's that have a coating that sprayed on the disc not a paper label!!

i've gotten several of the chartbusters and sound choice and other manu's and everyone of them are printed on the white printable disc's.

look carefully at your disc's you will see the difference.

if you have cdg's with paper labels you better double check with the manu's to verify they are legit!!

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It's all good!

Disagree, but hey, that's a forum for you. The CB black and whites are cheap smudge-proof one side coated sulphate labels- the standard for label makers without duplication concerns. I saw one tonight.
One of the first counterfeits that ever spotted was a screened on disc MM disc. whatever floats the boat, just adding info here.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I bought some pop hits monthly "retro" series disks, they have white labels with text only, not the more fancy looking disks they had in the late 90s-2000. Also the mp3+g disks I have of theirs aren't too great on labeling either. The retros came direct from Stellar and the mp3+g disks bought from Karaoke Warehouse so I am sure of their authenticity.

Sorry, it's a long and perhaps boring response...good luck!

...karaokegod73
.....I did something similar as you. The only exception was I went directly through Stellar with all of my updates or holes in my collection. Once I received the CDG's and MP3 discs, I got a little paranoid seeing some of these white faced discs labels mixed in with the normal graphic faced discs. So I called them.

.....My main concern was because of all the info that I had gathered from others (websites, dealers and other KJ's) as how to spot a counterfeit disc. Well, in my opinion these PHM discs had all the signs of being counterfeits. I even got nervous about the phone number that was listed on the Stellar website. Was I truly talking with Stellar reps or did someone fake the the website? It's happened before with big businesses on the internet?

....Over the last year or so, I've learned that The Big 3 have been doing some if not all In-House-Burning of CDG's/MP3 Discs on and off for several years now. Some of their labels don't look as Professional as they once did. To me, this just adds to the confusion as to what's real and what's counterfeit no matter who you're buying from.


.....I did ask Stellar, "So, if I decide to get out of the business and wanted to sell these discs or just wanted to sell one or some, how will the buyer know these aren't counterfeits." I was told, "We have you in our database as the original owner." I said, "OK?"


.....I somewhat went through the same issues with Chartbuster and Sound Choice. I did check on the seller that I had purchased most of my Chartbuster Library from and he checked out with Flying Colors. I couldn't get in touch with Sound Choice about the seller but I did call the seller back and they asked if I needed receipts for my purchases. I said "No, I've got them." She also mentioned that I shouldn't worry because all of my Bricks and Foundations were shipped directly from Sound Choice. Luckily I still had the shipping boxes with shipper's label info attached on it and believe it or not, there was the Sound Choice shipping label, address and all.


.....As for me, well I'm a KJ/DJ/VJ=(VJ was what Karaoke Jocks used to be called) from the very early 90's. We did the cassettes, laser discs and eventually CDG's. That was the 90's up until I got out of the business side around 2001. We never worried about counterfeits, laptops or external hard drives because no one was doing that. Plus, I don't believe that the technology was available back then. But once I got back in and started building up, I was warned to look for counterfeits.

.....Anyone I talked to said look on the back side and make sure it has a silver look. Any other color (purple, green, blue, etc.) means it's counterfeit. Also, make sure it's not a BURNED DISC. Nothing was ever mentioned about the Label Side. I just figured that anything without art work was a fake.
.....Further investigating has lead me to understand that these counterfeiters had gotten pretty good with duplicating The Artwork on the Labels. This even adds more confusion when purchasing.

....Some KJ's got burned by purchasing Karaoke Players with loaded hard drives without the accompanying discs. They didn't know they had gotten duped or were promised the discs and never received them or were promised some form of certificate but never received it. Although it would be considered HEARSAY, I've read where some KJ's bought their player/loaded drives from Authorized Dealers with the same above promises. However, this was also acknowledged by the Karaoke Manufactures in Vegas at their 2011 Convention. Video is online, I don't have the link but you can look it up.

.....Now that more Manufacturers are going to MP3 Discs, SD Cards and External Hard Drives I'm wondering how that's gonna play out. Was told that the files were marked and registered. Which is suppose to make it easier to track. I do have an External Hard Drive that I bought. No, it's not one of those illegal ones, it's a Chartbuster 6000 Vol. 2.

....All in all it can be very confusing and concerning even when you're doing the right thing. I do support the Manufacturers and those who sell APPROVED/AUTHENTIC Karaoke Tracks (in whatever legal form). However, at some point and time, I believe, MOST (not all) will question some if not all of their Karaoke purchases and likely feel I'm "GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN INNOCENT."

....I do like having as many tracks as possible. Most likely will only play a few hundred over time. However, you never know when you might make someone's night by having that one particular track. It's just better to be legal!

.....Sorry for the long post. It's yours to comment on. Rip it up, down grade it or whatever you chose. It's only an opinion....