Karaoke Forums

I'm not sure how you can say that you weren't corrected in the thread. It's pretty plain.

My beef is with this statement of yours:

If Piracy Recovery is a completely separate company, THEY have owned the trademark since 2009- NOT Chartbuster.

PR is a completely separate company, so your only condition was met. However, PR has not owned the trademark since 2009--only since last month. Thus, while you did state it as a conditional, using the word if, the conclusion you drew was inaccurate. And it was inaccurate based upon your misinterpretation of the trademark registration records.

You then proceeded to speculate well beyond your initial conditions, asserting that CB was "selling for a logo they had no rights to." That is just false.

It is that process--which you have repeated many times on other subjects--that I find so maddening. The conclusions you draw from the facts you have available to you are not warranted. To an uncritical reader, you appear to be an authority, and your logic appears to be sound, so they believe that what you are presenting are facts, not speculation. Ordinarily I wouldn't have a problem with that--we operate in a marketplace of ideas, after all, and that mechanism should confirm what you say or expose you as a liar--but your statements have consequences that you may or may not intend.

For example, I spoke a couple of weeks ago with a defendant in a lawsuit who allowed the complaint to go unanswered--to the point of default--because he had read that Sound Choice had shut down its U.S. operations and moved to Australia, and that it was no longer going to be policing its IP rights here. Now, I have no idea where he got that notion--I will address your "Australia" comment below--but the point is that here is a guy whose options were severely limited because he chose to believe irresponsible speculation. We were able to settle the case, but only after I assured him that the product he was being shipped--and that he was paying dearly for--was coming from Charlotte, NC, and not Australia. He was concerned that it would take too long and he would have to shut down for an extended period of time.


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I have no idea what thread you're referring to.

SC does not operate in Australia. It has not "moved distribution" there. It does not have offices there. There is a company, Clark Music Australia, that is a trademark licensee of SC that produces custom discs containing SC-branded karaoke tracks. Clark Music sometimes refers to itself as "Sound Choice Australia," which it is entitled to do under the license. Clark Music pays a royalty to SC for the use of the trademark. It also pays royalties to the music publishers under Australian law. Other than supplying the catalogue and licensing the trademark, SC is not involved in the operations and does not own any part of Clark Music.

The above paragraph is a statement of fact. It is not speculation, opinion, or anything other than the unvarnished truth about the situation. To the extent that you have been informed or otherwise believe something else about the situation, you are wrong.

[/quote]

I have no idea what thread you're referring to.

SC does not operate in Australia. It has not "moved distribution" there. It does not have offices there. There is a company, Clark Music Australia, that is a trademark licensee of SC that produces custom discs containing SC-branded karaoke tracks. Clark Music sometimes refers to itself as "Sound Choice Australia," which it is entitled to do under the license. Clark Music pays a royalty to SC for the use of the trademark. It also pays royalties to the music publishers under Australian law. Other than supplying the catalogue and licensing the trademark, SC is not involved in the operations and does not own any part of Clark Music.

The above paragraph is a statement of fact. It is not speculation, opinion, or anything other than the unvarnished truth about the situation. To the extent that you have been informed or otherwise believe something else about the situation, you are wrong.[/quote]
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First, you should be aware that replying within a post/quote is considered bad manners on most forums. Do as you wish, but I thought it would be good to pass on...

1) Plain as can be- no one corrected me before you.

2) WHOOPS! Here I sit corrected, and offer apologies:

" If Piracy Recovery is a completely separate company" SHOULD have been " If Piracy Recovery did own the trademark...."

I have no idea what the hell I was thinking while I was typing. My statement, as I typed it, was incorrect.

I will also add that I have verified that the actual transfer did not take place until this April.

HOWEVER, the application for transfer took place in January 2009, which is where the date came from. This means that CB WAS AWARE of all that was happening well in advance of selling audits that were to become even more worthless in a short time, offering the now useless song credits, and everything else that they did.

I believe that that anyone who bought the audits got scammed, IMHO

3) Oh, I'm quite sure that there is nothing on paper to connect Slep-Tone to Sound Choice Australia ( Yup, they can use that name there- but why would they? Do they sell SC product exclusively? In the majorit, maybe?) who distribute SC product.

The same applies to Stingray ( and I assume Kurt's brother is not connected on paper either) who owns the library in Canada- coincidentally putting the SC library and distribution outside of U.S. jurisdiction.

I'm sure that all the documentation is in order, and can presented as proof to any court in the land.

The problem is that we are not in a court of law here.

This is an internet forum filled with members who make their living in the world of practicality. It would take a lot more to sustain practical belief that Slep-Tone (Sound Choice), Sound Choice Australia (Clark Music), and Stingray have no real-world connection.

People here are fully aware of the vagueries of the legal system, and the corporate manipulations thereof.

If nothing else, there certainly an EXTREMELY high level of cooperation between three supposedly completely separate companies, would you not agree?

Do you see Stingray staying alive without the other two? Come to think of it, if the logo is retained my SC, then they couldn't even sell the complete library that they own to a third, truly independent party.

Does SC license the use of the logo to Stingray, or does Stingray license the use of the library to Sound Choice?

How much business do you think Sound Choice Australia would be doing without the other two?

As for PR and Digitrax: I have heard that Digitrax plans on replacing CB's logo with their own. IF this is true (better?) then PR would have to be a wonderfully cooperative separate company to allow that, rather than initiate a Trade Dress suit.


You can certinly see how belief can be stretched.....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

i know SC sold the rights to their library up to 2007 to Stingray, then license it back to use under the SC name, but Stingray actually owns them now.
As for Clark, they are a B&M store so sell stuff on their own, but they have got to be making tons being the only custom place for SC in the world.

To Harrington, why would they need to go to Australia to allow some store to make custom discs? i don't see Australia at the Karaoke capital of the world, why not the U.S., or the U.K.?

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

1) It is my understanding that SC still owns the logo, which is why THEY are the one doing the litigating. If that is so ( and it has to be or SC would have no grounds for suit), and the logos are still attached to the tracks that Stingray owns, then in reality SC controls the use of the library, no matter who owns it on paper.

2) Again, a truly amazing bit of cooperation between SC and a completely separate offshore retail store- who also happens to sell online with no physical geographical boundries. I'm guessing that the SC product far outstrips sales of whatever else they have in stock, to the point where SC is the main income source.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Joe, you have been ignoring my post in which I offered the correct information:



I did not elaborate on the issue because I did not have the time and thought I had given enough information for those interested to research on their own. Here's a more detailed explanation for you:

The site you referenced is merely a third party reporting site. That site receives automatic updates to it's records when changes are made at the United States Patent and Trademark Office and they are rather sloppy about how they represent those changes. You can see the original application here: http://tdr.uspto.gov/jsp/DocumentViewPa ... /false#p=1

Here is the document assigning the trademark to Piracy Recovery in April 2012:
http://assignments.uspto.gov/assignment ... o=77648984

The way it works is:
Once the assignment was recorded, the owner information on the application for trademark was automatically updated by the USPTO. Trademarkia subscibes to the USPTO update service, which automatically sends them any changes. Trademarkia receives those changes and automatically updates the data they make available for view but in a sloppy way that does not note the dates of changes made only original application dates.

The source of your confusion appears to be the 2009 date because hey, chartbuster has been around much longer than 2009 right? Yeah, but that's when they applied for federal registration of their trademark so they could engage in the new idea for revenue generation of trademark trolling.

Trademarkia is a lot like Justia in that they offer up some free information that is already available directly from government sources for free in an effort to get you to purchase more information from them that is already available directly from government sources for free. So you don't get the complete picture from those sources, just enough to whet your appetite, much like a post in a forum.

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KNOW THYSELF

I don't believe I did that, but if I did, it was unintentional.



This is not accurate, either.

The "application" you are referring to is the application for federal registration of the trademark. That occurred in 2009, and the mark was registered to CB. CB might be accused of a lot of things, but being "AWARE of all that was happening well in advance of selling audits that were to become even more worthless in a short time, offering the now useless song credits" is not fairly one of them.



Clark Music does distribute SC-branded karaoke tracks, under license. They also sell SC discs, and SunFly discs, and several other manufacturers. They sell and rent equipment.



Derek was a consultant for Stingray for a time after the sale of the catalogue. I believe that position has ended. It is not uncommon for the head of a company that sells a major asset to go to work for the purchaser of that asset, because at least some of the value of that asset lies in the work that person did. I believe the library is actually owned by a Stingray-related Hungarian corporation, but that's Stingray's business, not SC's or mine. But the copyrights--which is what Stingray owns--are not "outside of U.S. jurisdiction," and SC's distribution of tracks is most certainly in U.S. jurisdiction.



Indirectly, I agree. Speculation of the type you routinely engage in wouldn't be allowed in court.



They do have a real-world connection.

Stingray owns the catalogue and licenses it to Sound Choice for certain activities. That's a connection. There is no common ownership.

Clark Music is a licensee of the SC trademarks for its own products (custom discs) and a distributor of SC discs. That's a connection. Again, there is no common ownership.



Actually, there's not a high level of cooperation between Stingray and SC. We asked them to join with us in the lawsuits, and they declined to do so because they don't have any interest in the markets SC serves.



What does that even mean? Stingray owns the catalogue. They could easily sell it to someone else if they wanted. The logos are not part of the catalogue, and Stingray's tracks do not carry that logo.

At the time Stingray purchased the SC catalogue, there were three core businesses: karaoke discs, TV/movie licensing, and one other that I'm drawing a blank on at the moment. Stingray was primarily interested in the TV/movie licensing piece of the business, and they also wanted to get into downloads for home use. So in that transaction, Stingray purchased the complete catalogue and licensed it back to SC for karaoke discs. I'm dead-on certain that Stingray would not care one iota if SC went out of business. They are making a huge amount of money from home users (Karaoke Channel) and from licensing to TV and movie studios, and they are happy to do it.



Stingray licenses the use of the library to SC.



I have no idea, and I don't know of anyone other than Al Clark and his employees who care.



PR and Digitrax are under common ownership.

You seem to be misinformed about the nature of trade dress claims.

Removing the trademark does not, by itself, result in a trade dress claim. Where this has come up is in something we discovered prior to filing the last couple of suits in Arizona. We discovered that several KJs were using tracks with the SC logo removed. (And I don't just mean "not played," but actually digitally removed from the track.) In those situations, we still consider the playing of those tracks to be an infringement, but instead of also infringing the logo, they are infringing SC's unique trade dress (the look and feel of the graphics, including font, color, sweep and cueing methods, etc.).

The trade dress suit applies to both the tracks with the logo removed and the tracks with the logo intact.

Removing logos does not create a trade dress action--it merely fails to eliminate a trade dress action.

I assure you that Digitrax has all of the permission it needs to remove the Chartbuster Karaoke logos and put its own logos on.

Joe, Coca-Cola sells its product all over the world but are manufactured and distributed in many places by licenceed bottling plants, which are not owned by Coke but are licenced to produce, sell, and conduct other services for Coke. Pepsi does the same thing as do other companies. There is nothing nefarious there.

As for CB not telling anyone what they are doing, this again happens often in business. Companies buy into other companies, often without people knowing or if reported, few would even notice or care. Many businesses cease operations for a myriad of reasons (market slump, mismanagement, retirement, death, etc) and there is no requirement to make a big announcement about it. I have no doubt that there are businesses in your area one day and the next gone, and you don't know why. Sometimes you don't get to know the why and it is none of your business.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Clark is a full karaoke retailer. SC customs are just one of their product.
http://www.clarkmusic.biz/

I never understood though why the SC and Abraxa tracks that are available for customs have their own link and can't be mixed with the other manus customs they sell.
http://www.proburncdg.com/ccart/customer/home.php
http://www.mykaraokecdg.com.au/customer/home.php

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amazing how the hoops keep changing. First Sound Choice starts filing law suits if you show their logo from a computer. This causes people to figure out a way to remove the offending logo to avoid being harrassed by Sound Choice. What does Sound Choice do next. They make a claim that they own the rights to a font and colrs that no one else is allowed to use. How ridiculous is that? Just about every karaoke producing software swipes the lyrics in the same way that Sound Choice swipes the lyrics. Just more scare tactics in my opinion. If I buy a piece of Software like Karaoke Builder Studio; how can some other company like Sound Choice tell me which font I can use or what colors I can use when I make a yrack for myself? I woudl love to be a fly on the wall of that courtroom when Sound choice tries to show damages because Someone used the colors red, white & black in one of their songs. I have many sound Choice tracks that don't use the colors red white and black. Some use blue & yellow and some use pink. If Sound Choice uses every color combination over the years of making thousands of karaoe tracks; is anyone who makes a karaoke track in violation of forging Sound Choice's DRESS? I don't believe that Sound Choice ever developed a proprietary font. I believe that they just picked a font that was available on their computer when they first stated out in the business. I don't think were worried about piracy when they first started out in business so they just used whatever font was handy and was easy to read on a TV screen.

Yes your honor; XYZ karaoke company had the gall to use a font that they thought was easy to read and it looks to much like the same font they we chose 15 years ago. They also had the nerve to choose colors that would be easy for a singer to see on a TV screen; and we own thos colors. we also would like to stop CRAYOLA from selling red white and black crayons.

Apparently any font or color that Sound Choiced ever used is now owned by them and no one else can use them.

A friend of mine told me just today that a friend of his was served papers by Sound Choice awhile ago and the suit has been dropped. Apparently he wanted to fight the law suit and Sound Choice wanted no part of it. There is just too much low lying fruit still to be harvested to take a chance on losing even one case in a court room..

Here's an idea: If you can't follow the rules, don't use the product. There is no need to "remove the offending logo."



I wasn't sure if what you were saying was true, but since the source of your information is the friend of a friend of an anonymous message board poster, all unnamed, I've decided you couldn't possibly be making it up.

Jim, it reminds me of this commercial, "Have You Seen The Sign".

http://www.peachtreetv.com/videos/

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Nope, didn't ignore it. If you re-read my post, I state that the application was made in 2009. The actual transfer was made in April of 2012. There was no back-dating.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

1) So, after informing you that answering within a post is bad form, and your saying that you were unaware that you did that- you do it again. I must then assume that you reply this way to my posts to be intentionally rude. That's fine. Unlike others, I don't get emotianally bothered by bad manners. Feel free to continue- I kind of expected exactly that, after mentioning it. Unlike some, I do not get emotionally distracted in a debate.

2) Since even you admit that the application was in place in 2009, claiming that CB was unaware of it until lately is at best disingenuous. They knew, and yet they sold a worthless service, and offered credits that would become worthless.

3 and 4) Are you saying that the SC logo is no longer attached to the tracks in the Stingray library? I think you may be mistaken. If that is so, then SC still controls the Stingray product, which means they also control it's distribution.

5) WOW! You stated in this thread that Digitrax and PR are separate companies, yet in your last post you stated that they were under common ownership. I don't think I need to add anything to that.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I'm just thinking out loud, and this is purely speculation, BUT What if... CB still has their hands in this situation financially? This whole thing is a little stinky to me. This whole set-up could possibly have been a way for CB to have shifted assets to another entity (which they could potentially have a stake in) to keep those assets from being able to be touched by CAVS when they got hit with the Judgment, AND continue to make money off the product. It reminds me of the time my ex-husband filed for bankruptcy. All of a sudden, things disappeared and his creditors didn't have anything they could get their hands on...but shortly before it happened, his wife acquired (a bunch of) additional assets.

There are former CB employees involved in Digitrax...

It has been portrayed that all of this just happened to CB, but there isn't any real explanation as to how. Maybe I'm just skeptical and jaded, and maybe I've been working in law too long, but it certainly appears more like it could have been planned.

Attack away....

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Birdofsong

I reply this way so that your quote is entirely encapsulated in its own border, so that everyone can see which words are yours and which are mine, and so that there are no internal alterations in what you wrote. Your method requires you to put numerals inside my text. I am not doing it to be rude.



Joe, CB filed the original application and owned the registration until last month.

Last month, PR received the registration by assignment.

I don't know how to make it any more clear.



No, I'm not mistaken. The SC logo is not attached to the tracks that Stingray sells. The only exception is with Stingray tracks that are sold, minus graphics, as MP3s in the iTunes store, which are referred to in the descriptions as "Sound Choice" tracks. Because those tracks do not include any graphics, they do not carry the SC logo. Despite SC's complaints, Apple has not removed that designation.



No, Joe, I didn't say that, and you know that I didn't. Are you trying to confuse people on purpose?

I said that PR and CB are separate companies.

Digitrax and CB are separate companies.

PR and Digitrax are related companies. They are related by common ownership.

Joe, what are you talking about?


I answer like this all the time... I take the part of the quote (not the entire page worth) and reply to the part I wish to make my point. That is not replying within a posted quote.

This has been talked about, but I don't believe for a minute that anyone has actually done it.
To remove all the logos from the beginning, end and often middle of the songs would be extremely labor intensive.



Correct. Harrington is doing it the correct, accepted way. Just like I did in this post.

The logo is offending because it can cause a 1:1 ratio host to be sued just as easily as a pirate can be sued. Showing the logo seems to offend Sound Choice so why would they be offended if someone didn't show it?

Since Sound Choice's attorney claims that they also own a particular font and certain colors; someone will likely take it one step further and change the colors of the letters as they remove the logo that Sound Choice feels that they don't want displayed.

How long have these law suits been being filed? A couple of years at least I would presume. Why is it that not ONE case has gone into a court room? MY opinion is that Sound Choice can show NO financial losses when someone plays their tracks from a computer as opposed to a karaoke CDG Player. There are plenty of computers out there that can play a CDG disc from their DVD drives with no problems what so ever. That being the case; what is the difference between playing the song from the DVD drive as opposed to playing ot from the hard drive? I think that any judge would rule in favor of this practice as being fair use and rule on the side of David instead of Goliath.

If I buy a Corvette engine from General Motors; I can install it in my '66 Mustang if I choose to do so. General Motors doesn't care what I do with it after I purchase it. As far as their concerned; I can drop it in the ocean. Once you buy something it is yours to do with as you please. If I buy a Karaoke disc; I should be able to play it in whatever device is the most convenient for me to play it in. Hell! If I want to build a motorcycle around that Corvette engine; I'm even allowed to do that...even though the engine was designed to be used in a car.

There are literally thousands of DJs out there that have been using computers and mp3s to conduct business for years now and I don't believe any of them have been sued for not using CD players or a turn tables by any of the major record companies. Once you buy music of any kind; you should be able to play it in any machine of your choosing.

Years and years have gone by without Sound Choice taking one of these lawsuits to a conclusion in a court room. It sure makes me say Hmmmmmmmm. Apparently, if you call their bluff they walk away and move on to the next easy target. If they file 1,000 law suits and 10% of the defendants call their bluff; they still have 900 pigeons to pluck even if they dismiss the 100 law suits of the people that stood up to their threats.

I've been to shows where the KJ had Sound Choice tracks that had the logos removed. I asked the guy how he did it but he wouldn't tell me but he did say it only takes a minute or two to do it for each song. I guess if you have 20,000 Sound Choice tracks; it would be pretty time consuming.

After doing the math; It would take approximately 16 weeks of working 40 hours per week to remove the logos from 20,000 songs.....and then Sound Choice would file a law suit against the person for using the color RED.

I hope I never accidentally use the "special" font that Sound Choice uses whenever I make my home made karaoke tracks. I'd hate to get sued for using the wrong fon't; especially since I do have a fondness for the Black White & Red combination of colors. Those colors simply are just easier on the eyes. I have a few songs that have dark blue letters on a black background and I have to strain my eyes to read the lyrics. I wonder if a judge would find me guiilty if I were to change those blue letters to white and have them swipe to red so it would be easier for me to use the product that I paid for in good faith?

Back to the Corvette...Would General Motors file a law suit against me if I had custom interior made for my Corvette that wasn't an official General Motor's color....or if I decided to paint my Corvette pink instead of the original RED?

You can customize a seventy thousand dollar car but you can't customize a two dollar karaoke track???? PU-lease!

Brucefan4life,
I think you are finally getting it "You can customize a seventy thousand dollar car but you can't customize a two dollar karaoke track???? "...that is correct legally if you remove the logo it makes your action one of "willful infringement" and violates "trade dress laws" hence the filling for both in the joint lawsuits.

You may not like the truth but that doesn't make it less true

Blessings
Athena

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
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"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

and just because you say it's so, doesn't make it so. I said that I would like to see how a INDEPENDENT JUDGE would see it; not how a Sound Choice Cheerleader would see it. WE ALL KNOW how you see it....Through Sound Choiced colored glasses.

Also, If someone buys an mp3 of a Sound Choice track from Stingray Music and creates a CDG file that looks exactly like the original Sound Choice Track, except for the corporate logos: how is that customizing the original Sound Choice creation?