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New Jersey is outside my area of responsibility, so I cannot speak to whether or why the pirate in question has not been sued. There are a lot of factors that go into filing a lawsuit.

However, I wanted to respond to Joe's allegation directly, because it is simply not accurate. Sound Choice has spent tens of thousands of dollars investigating suspected pirates. Each of the hosts my firm has sued, without exception, has been the subject of an in-person field review, conducted by an investigator trained according to my instructions, as well as an extensive background investigation conducted by my staff (and usually by me personally). It is true that we pull names from websites and ask competitors to provide tips--but that information is met with an on-the-ground follow up in every case, every time. In fact, one of the reasons why this process has been so slow is because I have insisted that we have "confirmed, actionable intelligence" before proceeding with a lawsuit. It has been that way from the beginning of my involvement.

This requires a bit more explanation counselor that will more clearly define the term you use as "investigator."

Is this "investigator" a licensed private investigator or simply someone you've instructed on what to look for?



Why has not a single case gone to trial and why have cases been simply delayed? DanDanTheTaxiMax for example, is simply frozen (and has been frozen for over a year,) and there seems to be no incentive on your part to come to a conclusion.

It is good that you are using due diligence in your investigations, why hasn't any of your efforts, resulted in a conviction that can set a legal precedent, and make all of your suits easier to win?

While some investigations are conducted by "licensed private investigators," the majority are conducted by persons employed by my firm who operate under my direct supervision. You may not be aware that a PI license is not required for attorneys who are conducting pre-litigation investigation, nor for people who are working under an attorney's supervision.

Each investigator produces a report at the conclusion of the investigation, summarizing what was witnessed and declaring under penalty of perjury that the report is true and accurate.



Are you aware that only about 5% of all civil cases are ever tried? Most cases are settled or dismissed. It is hardly surprising to an attorney that in two years, none of these cases have yet come to trial, particularly in view of the default rate among defendants and the overall settlement rate.

The case you are referring to, however, is not "frozen." Discovery in that case is ongoing and is scheduled to conclude on 8/19/2011. At the conclusion of discovery, the court will have a scheduling conference to set the trial date. Ordinarily there would already be a trial date, but the judge presiding over the case is based in Alaska, so he has a different way of scheduling things.

I will say that one reason for the delay that has occurred has been that the original judge in the case was named to the Court of Appeals, and the second judge had been assigned only a few days before the chief judge in that district (Arizona) was assassinated, and there was a great deal of reorganization of the docket at that time. The length of time required to get to this point has been largely beyond our control. I will be happy to get that case tried as soon as it's ready for trial.

There will not be any convictions resulting from these cases. These are civil cases, which will end either in settlement, dismissal, or judgment. An ordinary judgment (as a result of a trial) does not generally create a precedent. An order granting summary judgment might provide some persuasive authority, but it would not be binding on anyone but the parties. So I think your premise is a bit misinformed.

But you're also mistaken about whether our efforts have resulted in judgments. We've obtained two default judgments against defendants so far. More are in process right now and will almost certainly be granted. I don't have the exact figure in front of me but there are at least 30 defendants in default right now, waiting for a judgment to be entered. We have to request a judgment, and that process involves obtaining affidavits from witnesses, assembling dozens of pages of documentary evidence, and preparing an individualized motion and brief. It takes a lot of time to do that, and we've got a backlog right now.

I think my previous post answers the other implication in your question.

That's all well and good in some states, however there are states where the "working under an attorney's supervision" doesn't work unless that person is a full-time employee of the law firm, not a "temporary" or "part time" employee.

Also, this type of "investigator" that has been instructed and paid for by the plaintiff's law firm is really going to have one heck of a time convincing a jury that their information is credible and not biased.
Contracting with a local, licensed private investigator however is a different ballgame.





What about the others? I'm not talking about default judgments here, I don't care about those because in the grand scheme of things, they mean very little.

The cheerleaders will be sorry to hear that there will be no convictions in these cases, they feel that all pirates should be hung from the highest yard arm in the British navy. The manus are only interested in settlements, dismissal, and judgements. Let me get this straight there have been no judgements to date, except those that were by default. Even if one of these cases were carried and contested the whole way it only could be applied to that particular situation. So the manus will never have a cookie cutter approach to settling all of this litigation quickly, and all of these civil suits for 500,000 illegal hosts and venues would take years. That is why the manus have to charge all these fees and try to get the pirates legal with product. It will cost more to try all of these suits than they can ever hope to recoup.

The investigations we conduct are fully legal within the jurisdiction where they are conducted.

You seem to be under the impression that the investigator will testify in the lawsuit. That is not the purpose of the investigation. When we go to trial, the investigator's testimony is not needed, because we have direct evidence of the infringement, obtained through discovery. The defendant will be required to testify as to his or her activities and to authenticate the evidence that is being used--generally, hard drives, advertisements, etc. I am not worried about the investigator's credibility before a jury. On the other hand, I do require my investigators to put their findings under oath, and I believe they are credible in what they say to me. All of them know that if they lie to me, I won't hesitate to hang them out to dry.

The purpose of the investigation is to satisfy an even more basic requirement, that we have a good-faith basis for believing that the allegations in the complaint are accurate. Conducting a field review is not a legal requirement, because we could sue simply on the basis of tips from informants and meet our legal burden regarding good faith. But we do conduct field reviews because Sound Choice and I view it as important to the integrity of the process.



Of the five oldest cases on my docket--the last of which was filed in April 2010--two are fully resolved at the trial level as to all defendants; one is Arizona, which will come to trial soon; one has two defendants left, both of whom are in default; and one has two defendants left, one of whom is in default, and trial with the other one will occur by year's end unless we settle. Every other case on my docket is less than a year old. Civil litigation takes a long time.

I will point out that one reason for delay in the early cases is that early on, we didn't do a good job of nailing down good location information for the defendants before we sued. Some defendants simply disappeared before we could serve them. We've significantly improved on that over time.

I don't have any interest in putting any KJ in jail. There are other players, however, for whom jail time is a real possibility.

On your other point, trials are expensive and time-consuming. They're also unnecessary in most cases, where liability is clear and it's just a question of deciding how much the defendant will pay. I would rather settle a case than try one any day. But we have the resources to try as many cases as necessary.

It's not possible to have a global settlement of this litigation, because the courts don't work that way. There is no such thing as a class action for defendants. We treat all defendants individually, and any defendant who wants his day in court can get it. On the other hand, if you've done what we've accused you of, and you push it to a trial, you're only hurting yourself, because the judgment will have to take that extra cost into account.

I'm not sure why you think it's a bad idea to get pirates legal. There is demand for karaoke services at a reasonable rate that far exceeds the number of legal KJs available to meet that demand. What we are trying to do is to force pirates out of the business OR make them compete on level terms with legal operators. Over time, rates should rise as some pirates leave the business and others have to recoup what they pay the manus to get legal.

Private Investigators would also be paid by the plaintiff's law firm, so by your statement his or hers information could also be biased. This is just a red herring. Harrington Law is also correct when he states that Private Investigators seldom give testimony in court. In over 15 years of doing private investigations, I've been subpoenaed once.

Further, as Harrington Law stated, these are civil cases, not criminal ones. For criminal cases these would have to be investigated by either local, state (provincial), or federal (FBI/RCMP) authorities who can lay Criminal Charges.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I'm not the one that has a problem competing against pirates, it is other legal hosts that have a problem with the pirates being able to purchase the GEM series at a reduced rate to what they had to pay for the same library. The disc based hosts are also chaffing at having to pay the audits and fees charged to obtain a certificate. That is no concern to me because I have made the choice to boycott all Sound Choice product, and don't use it in my show at all. When you have old time hosts such as kjathena that has 100,000's of dollars invested in her business, letting the pirate buy in for 7800.00 is troubling. I myself believe that there should be a simple license issued to all hosts, paying the fees collected into a central fund, that could be distributed to the various manus. This would stop all legal suits, pump money back to the manus and maybe get SC back to actually making new product, much more tamper proof of course.

For the same reason that you wouldn't want every person who bought the DVD of the old Perry Mason shows be given a license to practice law and start competing with you.

I take it you spent a number of years and dollars getting where you are and you wouldn't take it lightly to state bar handing out licenses along with clerks to do the work at a financed discount rate to your new competitors. All the while claiming they are "helping YOU to make the industry better."

It's a crock and in my opinion, you are not only enabling but facilitating this activity.

What you say in my opinion, is a crock and in my opinion, you are not only enabling but facilitating mis-information.

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"Just Say NO, To Justin Bieber & His Beatle Haircut"

And exactly, what "mis-information" [sic] would that be?

Where did you get the idea that they buy the GEM series at a discounted rate?

Our standard settlement is $7500 for one 4800-track package. That's about $1.56 a track. The same package is available to a retail customer for $3780, or about $.79 a track. The retail financing options are better, too.

There are lots of KJs who paid more than that for CD+Gs. That's what the prices were then. Does it bother you that people can buy flat-screen displays for a small fraction of what they used to cost?

Athena may well have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in her operations, but she's got a much better collection than the guy who settles for $7500 and has nothing else. If he wants to get to her level, he's going to have to put some money in. I'm also guessing that because she has that much invested in it, she's a lot better at what she does than that guy, so it's probably not an issue.

Obviously, you missed the point: Pirates are being rewarded for being pirates, not punished. Many of the KJ's - like Athena for example - already have the songs in the gem series and will most likely not purchase them.

And, you are mistaken about this business; a large library doesn't make you "a lot better" than anyone else, anymore than an expensive office makes anyone a better attorney. There are plenty of lousy hosts with huge libraries and lots of lousy attorneys with fancy offices.

Please explain the McCleod's case, and has the "investigator" been charged with perjury?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

good point Joe.
since the investigators in AZ are not doing the investigations, and purjered themselves, could someone like Michael Michael fight back with that as well?

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

And the inverse is just as true:
If a KJ has not done what you're accusing and it's pushed to a trial, the resulting countersuit will be quite damaging to your client.

I am somewhat suspicious however about your comments regarding your investigations because it simply doesn't jive with recent history and those plaintiffs that have been voluntary dismissed with prejudice prior to their attorney making an appearance. Those that settle are not dismissed with prejudice whether or not their attorney makes an appearance.

It is discounted compared to what the legal hosts had to pay for it, is the point. The pirate can still buy your product and continue whatever other manus products, because you are only concerned with getting paid for the use of your product, and trademark. So the pirate library could be larger still than the legal host at a fraction of the cost the legal host had to pay. If the pirate decides to buy the product retail before the suit then he gets even a better deal. If every manu followed your example a pirate could end up with just as large a library as the legal host at a fraction of the cost, to the host that tried to be legal. Then for the hosts that have paid top dollar, they still have to pay for an audit and a yearly checkup. What bothers me is the fact that Sound Choice is only concerned with making whatever dollars they can. The last viable segment of the market left is the karaoke hosts, held hostage by virtue of the fact for many, it is their only source of income, and they have already invested so much of themselves and money into this business. Kjathena is by far the better business woman than many of the hosts, I just wish her friends at Sound Choice were a little more supportive of hosts like her and others who feel that your way of doing things is the right way. It might be the right way for Sound Choice, I not so sure it is good for the industry as a whole however. I have been told that your crusade is moral and just, as I can see you intend to make it profitable as well.