Karaoke Forums

My point is that the citation refers to just the blog address for something "well documented". No direct post or blog entry. It would be like citing the entire Karaoke Scene website. What court is going to data mine that entire blog?

Also I failed to mention that the original lawsuit against Expressway Music was another APS/Steve Brophy fiasco gig which I have admitted to being a GIGANTIC mistake on Slep-Tone's part for hiring them. Surely it is harming them since Expressway is following the lead of the Sugano ruling in California, another APS/Brophy fiasco story.

Again, if Expressway wants to follow the advise of the Kossack blog, that is their choice. They should get what they deserve for doing so.

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-- Mark

What will be interesting is what Slep-tone will come up with to oppose Expressway's motion. I hired APS, but hey disappeared. Sounds like the dog ate my homework. They should have dismissed Expressway if they have no existing basis for maintaining the suit.

But wait! Has Expressway always been disc based for the length of their karaoke business?

I missed that Phantom Cat again! Shucks!

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-- Mark

I hate to speak in absolutes, but YOU were quoted.

" But according to the motion papers, during a pre-motion conference Mr. Harrington admitted that he did not conduct a pre-filing investigation because “[w]e don’t need to observe infringement in order for infringement to occur and be actionable” and “…the fact of observation, to us, is irrelevant.”

Here, just like Rodney B., you never set foot into the venue, and never observed ANYTHING.

This means that you are lying outright. Apologies in advance for the strength of my statement, but it stands.

It's probably wrong of me to ask- since you ARE a lawyer- but you also seem like a nice guy, so I must: Is there nothing- maybe buried deep ( a concience, an ethical code) that maybe makes you think- every once in awhile- that you might possibly be doing something that you shouldn't? At least as far as serving as an example for, I don't know, maybe younger family members?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Joe, that's a low blow. Shame on you.

Actually, Joe, as you will see later today when we file our response:

1. The "quote" was taken grossly out of context. Here is the full text of what I said, with the context:



As you can see, I did not say ANYTHING about not conducting a pre-suit investigation. I was referring to the fact that the first complaint alleges that an investigator witnessed the infringement and the counterclaim and the counterclaim does not.

"Observation" is not an element of trademark infringement. When a jury or the judge is going down the list of points to be proven for the plaintiff to prevail, "observation" is not one of them. So for the purposes of what we need to allege in order to state a claim for trademark infringement, "observation" is not a requirement. It is simply irrelevant to whether we have stated a claim or not.

2. We did conduct a pre-suit inquiry that was "reasonable under the circumstances" as required by Rule 11. Given the things that the plaintiff in that case had already admitted (via the declaratory judgment complaint it filed), other information we were able to gather prior to filing the counterclaim, and logical inferences we have drawn from that information--which we will lay out in our response--I have no problem whatsoever stating that our factual contentions have evidentiary support.

3. Finally--and this is the real coup de grace--it turns out that we have been able to track down the actual investigator (a licensed P.I.) and obtained his original report, which includes time-coded photos and a written report. Whereas we were unwilling to rely on Steve Brophy's statement without having seen the original report, we have now seen that original report. The investigation did occur; it occurred well before the first lawsuit was filed; and the report of that investigation supports the claims we made.

Perhaps you might want to retract your accusation. You know, in case there are some younger family members you might want to influence.

(By the way, investigators did visit Rodney's establishment. The confusion was that there were at least two guys who serviced that venue--"Rod" and "Ron"--each of whom had certain nights. The day the investigator showed up for Rodney's show, Ron happened to be filling in. Ron used a computer; Rodney did not. I am pretty sure that whatever problems he might have had with APS's handling of that situation, he was satisfied with what happened as soon as we--SC and I--found out about it. I visited Rodney personally at his venue for about two hours. We talked karaoke, his operations, piracy, and a lot of other stuff. He's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. I made an immediate recommendation that the lawsuit against him be dropped, and Kurt issued his instructions to Donna Boris that day. The only people who have continued to hold it against us are people who have a vendetta against SC. Rodney certainly doesn't.)

What will now happen to the Phantom Cat in the Expressway saga? Oh my my, how embarrassing!

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-- Mark

Boom!

I hope his real fist is bigger than that.

Can somebody please enlighten me regarding the basis for all these lawsuits? Correct me if I'm wrong .... please don't flame me.... Slep sold his catalog to Stingray. How is is possible that you can sell your all of your content to another company and still be able to sue/threaten to sue someone over copyright that you no longer own? I mean, how is possible to sell the content but still retain the rights to the trademark?

My understanding is SC sold the audio recordings to Stingray which it then licensed back, but retained the Sound Choice trademark. The Karaoke Channel does not use the Sound Choice trademark. The suits are based on trademark infringement of the Sound Choice marks, not copyright infringement of the underlying audio work.

-Chris

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-Chris

I think they said they licensed back the disc only rights. Stingray has the download for home use part.

This is correct. The only thing I would add is that SC does still own the copyright in about 100 sound recordings produced after April 2007, and of course will own the copyright in the new material scheduled for release in May.

Are you talking about the tracks that were supposed to be released in March?

Nope he's talking the new tracks that have been slated for May. The March releases were supposed to be for the GEM additions of older stuff that kj's requested, not new material. But since those never happened as of yet, we'll see.

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

Thanks Lonman for confirming that SC failed to meet it's own deadline once again. No new material last Fall, no rehashed material in March, and now we are waiting to see what happens in May. Yet SC insists that we take them seriously and they are still a major player, really? I have been told I should be more patient and things will work out in the end. The only problem is I am getting up in age and I don't think I'll live long enough for SC to get back where it was. Have a blessed day.

I would certainly retract- AND add a personal apology if proven wrong.

I have a couple of problems. First, the initial statement regarding the "disappearing investigator", which, like or not, added up to no evidence.

Second ( and I admit to being unsure of this), the original "investigator" was the KJ (Mike?). This gives me pause for thought-Was he offered "immunity" from SC actions in return for whatever he reported? Would this not possibly negate credibility?

Third, the mysterious return of this report, now under APS label.

Lastly, while my comments were overly harsh, please note the following:

After literally years of being called delusional, speaking of "Joe's World", and other such posts when I would question SC's non-professional alleged "investigations" I read an admission not only that they WEREN'T done, but that SC doesn't even think they are neccesary! ( Yes, I read the entire quote, but given my opinion of what was behind it, nothing has really changed).

Just seems like a waste of YEARS of denial, which I found shameful. However, since my ethos and Jim's ( and apparently some others' here) differ dramatically, I guess I should have kept my feelings to myself.

. Adding that to other mis-statements:

1)- Like the Rodney excuse- NO ONE EVER WITNESSED RODNEY RUNNING A KARAOKE SHOW ON PC-period. The rest is garbage.

2) Like trying to dis-associate SC from APS's actions by claiming no knowledge, yet replying to posts here on the forum about those actions for a long time before deciding to call them bad guys. They KNEW what was going on, but as long as the settlements kept coming, it was all good.

No matter what SC was responsible for the actions of those they contracted.

3) Like claiming to fight piracy (track theft), when even Kurt said that wasn't their priority, when piracy (track theft)has never been an issue in the suits, when no evidence of piracy (track theft) has ever been required to sue.

I would like to offer another personal opinion. I have always thought of an attorney as a client representative. In this vein I have always stated that Jim was doing what he was supposed to to represent SC. He was just doing his job.

More and more lately, I have formed another theory. IF Jim is truly the co-designer of SC's current business plan ( and someone with legal training would be required), and IF ( and again, I admit to having no real knowledge of Jim's payment arrangement with SC- this is opinion ONLY), Jim is getting paid a percentage, just like APS and Boris, then he would seem to be acting as a business partner ( I mean financially, NOT legally speaking as in a legal partnership, LLC, or Corp.) watching out for his own interests, and not as a representitive only.

The above is ONLY a line of supposition on my part, but it seems to fit the scenario, and it causes me to add a great deal more salt to what I read of his posts.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

It will always be supposition according to James because we don't have access to all the facts like he does. Unfortunately knowledge is power and when you have all the information at your disposal you can spin the story anyway you want. If James's payment situation is similar to Donna Boris and APS he would have a vested interest in spinning the story line to advance his bottom line. Have a blessed day Joe.

I'm not sure what "initial statement" you're referring to. My statement--which I quoted to you in full--was directed to the precise reason why we omitted a particular accusation from the complaint. Mr. Brophy has indeed disappeared. I went to his last known personal residence--my, myself, in person--and the house was empty. His "business address" is a UPS Store in Phoenix. Because I could not verify the extent of his investigation--whom I assumed actually performed the investigation--I was uncomfortable alleging that he had in fact seen the logo displayed at the show. My point was that we don't have to prove that we saw it to state a claim for trademark infringement (only that it occurred, which can be proven in many ways).

I also don't know where you got that the "original investigator was the KJ (Mike?)." That seems to have been made up by someone, not me. We were able to uncover information recently that led us to identify the actual investigator, whom we contacted and who confirmed that he had in fact seen the logo during his investigation, as well as some other facts. His declaration is a matter of public record.

That person, whose name is Larry O'Leary (also a matter of public record), is a professional private investigator who contracted with APS to do the investigations. Mr. O'Leary is not a KJ, to my knowledge, and he wasn't offered any sort of immunity in exchange for his information. After having spoken with Mr. O'Leary and viewed his contemporaneous report, I'm confident that he is telling the truth.



You read someone else's mischaracterization--a cropped quote--as an "admission" without hearing my side of the story or examining the facts for yourself. Now that you've been presented with the actual facts, perhaps you should evaluate whether the people who were advancing that mischaracterization have an "ethos" that matches up with yours after all.



I have never disputed the fact that no one ever witnessed Rodney running a karaoke show on PC. I have explained in detail what happened and how we handled it. APS's mishandling of that matter was a strong factor in its being dismissed. I don't find that information to be "garbage." We accepted responsibility for what APS had done and took immediate steps to correct the problem. I know that Rodney doesn't have a problem with how we handled it. I do know that certain people have a Chip on their shoulder about it, but there is no pleasing those people.



I really don't understand what the complaint is. There are many things that APS did that SC in fact had no knowledge of at the time. Some of the things people complained about were just hard bargaining. Although I prefer to take a different approach, I cannot say that APS's tactics were entirely inappropriate in most cases. There are some things that APS did that were inappropriate because they went outside their instructions.



Your inability to understand our approach to this is the one thing that makes me question your intelligence. I'm sorry if that's harsh, but you seem like a smart guy, and it has been explained to you numerous times, and yet you still profess not to know what we're doing.

"Fighting piracy," qua piracy, is not our priority, no. We are, however, very concerned about piracy of SC's materials. To the extent that it is helpful to the recovery of SC's assets, we are happy to take steps to fight piracy generally. But we have never pretended that our goal is to eradicate piracy; the goal is to ensure that the people who use SC's materials pay for that use. I really don't understand why you consider that to me an inappropriate goal.

But "track theft," as you refer to it, is a huge part of these suits. The allegations we make are made under the assumption that most of the people we sue are indeed "track thieves," in one form or another, and that all of the people we sue who merely appear to be track thieves, but actually do have 1:1 correspondence, will come forward, have that verified, and get sent on their way with no further issues. Everyone else gets pursued to the end, unless they are willing to settle on terms we agree to.



Representation is only one function of an attorney.



This is a common complaint against attorneys who work on contingent fee. "He's got an interest in the litigation!" "He's biased!"

The flip side of same complaint applies to attorneys who are getting paid by the hour. "You're just running up the bill!" "You don't want to settle this case because you'll make more money if it goes to trial!"

Every attorney who expects to be paid for his work is subject to the same complaints. The mechanism of payment doesn't change that.

As an attorney, I'm obligated to put my own interests aside, whatever they might be, and to do what's best for the client. Sometimes that can be very uncomfortable, but it's a requirement of the profession. A doctor who would financially benefit from having a sick patient doesn't (or at least shouldn't) intentionally make his patient sicker or withhold a cure in order to continue getting paid for treatment. Attorneys are no different in terms of their obligations. I can't speak for other attorneys, but as for me, I take that obligation very seriously.

I have never recommended that a client proceed with a course of action that I believe would be detrimental, but that would result in my receiving a fee, contingent or otherwise.



I have never pretended to be anything other than an advocate for my client. Fortunately, I have never been required to choose between being an advocate for my client and posting truthful information. As I have often told my clients, they should tell the truth, because the truth will always come out, and while we can be happy that the truth came out if we told it, we really can't deal with being exposed in a lie. I've never been asked to lie for SC, nor would I if asked. The truth always serves us better than a lie ever would.

But you should be aware that there are a great many people who have an interest in undermining my credibility, who will present misleading information directed toward that effort. If you choose to take what I say with a grain of salt, so be it. I can live with that. I will simply keep telling the truth.

So Brophy has gone missing. What a cad!

Hopefully he has assets if Slep-Tone wins the suit they brought forth against him in default.

Can you serve him through his corporation if he can't be found personally? I wonder what criminal implications might arise from this?

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-- Mark