Karaoke Forums

depending on how far along in the process they are, they have to prove they have the discs. Settling a case before it hits the judge's court means they admit they don't have the discs.[/quote]

What it means Danny is that rather than let everything go to an expensive trial, of which the outcome is unsure, it makes more sense to settle. It is called risk v.s reward, it make more sense to settle for 3500.00 to 5000.00 to license GEM. That is why SC and Jim aren't going to see anymore of these $100,000.00 settlements. The word has gotten out the amount of the damages is the fair retail value of the product in question. They aren't admitting anything, they are just making it go away. As long as SC gets it's payoff they could care less.

What it means Lone Ranger is rather than go to trial - buy your discs in the first place. SC doesn't let you settle for the GEM series without removing SC tracks you don't have the discs for.

Another case of just because you say it over and over and over and over again doesn't make it true. The amount of damages awarded varies case by case and in the majority of cases it has been decided that the damages exceed fair retail (which could be above or below MSRP) by a considerable amount. That is a fact. Plain and simple.

Also, your settlement figures amount to a guess and only a guess. It has been stated before by those who actually know what they are talking about because they possess the factual basis and information upon which they are speaking, that the price of the GEM is not the standard retail price when you are involved in a lawsuit.

The final statement is a mis-statement... you probably meant "they couldn't care less". Saying they could care less implies that they care, which we all know you couldn't possibly mean...

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Never the same show twice!

LR, what on God's green Earth are you talking about? SC sees their product being used via a computer and have probably seen then in books or whatever. They launch a suit and get a Discovery. At the Discovery one of two things will happen. The host WILL produce discs or they don't have them. Only one or the other will happen. If they have the discs, que sera sera. If they don't, then comes the remedy, unless the said host has some grounds for playing SC music without any SC discs and quite frankly I can't see any, and they go to trial will the host will definitely lose. I'm sure even you can see that, no discs, product wasn't paid for.

Now the road to remedy can be going out of business, buy GEMS or some other method of remedy. I don't really care what it is because it is not my business.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Exactly how has the word gotten out? Carrier Pigeon? Telegrams?

Some interesting stats -

Only 227 KJ's on these forums (at least who self-identify as KJ's)
Only 12 KJ/s have joined since *I* joined in late 2011.
Less than 50% (105) have logged on since Jan 1st, 2014

There are only a couple dozen KJ's at most that I have seen regularly posting on this forum in the last 2.5 years. I am sure there are a bunch that just lurk, but my guess is that most KJ's still don't have a clue about what is going on with the lawsuits. There are of course other forums out there, but I haven't run across any that have a larger active population of KJ's than here.

If someone knows of some super active gathering place for karaoke hosts I am unaware of, please PM me.

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-Chris

And I have said this before too... Most of the local KJs that I know, never heard of the JOLT Forum (old and long dead now), or K-Scene, or any other Karaoke Forum. They just don't have time for anything else other than FB, and would only be aware of these lawsuits if other Karaoke folk (either KJs or Singers) happened to mention it in their FB page/s. In general, most of these people have better things to talk about.

For your curiosity and/or amusement... http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/educat ... s?page=all

Thank you. You just described the problem with SC's methodology. Suits launched with absolutely no evidence or proof af ANY wrongdoing.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

What are you talking about, if a computer is used and no discs seen, then how does one "investigate" to see if there are discs? I hope you are not advocating they break and enter to find if there are discs. The only option is to sue and have a discovery unless you want them to take somebody's word for it.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

No what I'm saying MtnKaraoke is don't use the SC product in the first place. Boycott the product so you don't have to go into this legal dance with them. Currently they are the only manu requiring anything in a semi-serious way. What is happening over and over again is when SC is seriously challenged in court they come up on the short end of the stick. According to the counter suit by APS Kurt represented the average settlement at $14,000.00, which as it turned out was an over exaggeration. APS and Donna Boris in California were doing cookie cutter settlements for $5,000 each. In the California suit over half the defendants walked and didn't pay a dime. That makes the hosts that even settled at $5,000 look awful foolish.

What are you talking about Mtn? It is not a guess as to the settlement amount in the Panama City Florida case. It is one case that went to trial and was settled. Two defendants had to pay the fair retail value of the product in question. The third defendant walked and he didn't even have a lawyer, and still beat Jim. The awards for that case were appealed by Jim and he lost his appeal. When you are suing some one in civil court you have to determine the damages to the injured party. SC did not get the money from the sale of their product, the extent of their damages are the fair retail value of the product in question period.

No again Mtn, I meant what I said as long as SC licensed their GEM series that is all they really care about. Suits drives sales, they are sitting on a huge inventory of unsold product, and they have to move it to recoup the investment on that inventory. If they can use the legal system to leverage those sales, that is what they are going to do. I think any host that gives them an opening or pays them a dime really need to consult with an attorney first.

What are you talking about tim? For years of have maintained the best way to avoid trouble with SC is not to use their product, to boycott it. There is nothing they can do to a host that doesn't use their product in the first place. After the way they have treated hosts that bought the product and still had to go through their legal process, it probably would have been better. The hosts that have been put out are the one's that tried to do the right thing in the first place.

I didn't use a real computer when I was hosting, according to Bazza it was a magic box. My books had no SC listed and I still had plenty of business, so SC is not needed to run a successful show. So we come to the remedy, what is that but to license the GEM series? Once that simple thing is done it's over SC got it's pay off and can take another GEM series off the inventory list. The host will definitely lose really tim, you mean like they lost in Panama City, and in California, and Las Vegas, really? SC;s goal tim is not to run anyone out of business, or to lessen your competition, it is to move their product and get it sold.

I'm sure once a host is named in a suit by SC Chris they will be looking for information on these forums. To date less than 2% of the active KJ's in this country have been sued by SC. In fact there are more hosts today than when SC started their legal process Chris. The majority of which are illegal by SC's estimate. If more hosts are unaware of the current situation concerning SC suits, it is because the suits themselves have been of little impact on the industry.

If this were true, we would have more than 227 KJ's here.



This is a guess. No one knows how many KJ's there are. I don't believe Sound Choice, All-Star, DigiTrax or anyone else has a clue as to how many KJ's there are in this country. I KNOW you don't know.



Guess. Though I believe this to be true myself. You should at least provide us some concrete data on how you come to this conclusion. I am not going to just believe you.



Correction - by ANYONE'S estimate. I don't believe there is a person on these forums that thinks there are fewer pirates today than last year or the year before or.....



By default, no one is aware of the lawsuits. They aren't coming here to find out about them. The word isn't getting out like you want us to believe. You even back-peddle away from the word getting out to the lawsuits being of little impact at all.

If they are of such little impact, why are they the only thing you talk about out?

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-Chris

You just don't get it. How many times does it have to be spelt out to you for you to understand.
Unless you are one of the ones who have followed SC's rules for media shifting then you are guilty by default whether you're 1:1 or not. SC allows for media shift if you simply go through an audit to make sure you are 1:1. Those 1:1 that doesn't get the audit and are investigated fall into technically infringement that can be rectified before the process goes too far. Those that don't have the discs settle for a more expensive copy of the GEM series and have to wipe their drives of the illegal SC content.

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

But you have said numerous times that you run a golden oldies show which is not what SC mainly targeted - they had a handful of of golden oldie discs, so of course you could get away with not using any. Now if you running a show that needed more 70's, 80's, 90's 2000's, metal, alternative, etc - then chances are you need to use SC more often. And especially since many songs on SC that get sung are only on SC to begin with.

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

LR, there are three choices:

a. don't use SC;
b. use SC as intended; or
c. pay $150.00 for making a copy to a hard drive to use.

To me paying $150 to get duplicates of an SC library is cheap. A lot cheaper than paying for two of the same disc.

It really is that simple.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

So..... have you spent your $150 yet?

He doesn't use a computer. He wouldn't need to spend the $150 as he uses all original discs.

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

BINGO Lonnie. We have discs that are well over 20 years old, used 5-7 days a week 52 weeks of the year, that are like new because we keep them in their jewel cases.

If we ever convert then $150 is nothing, less than one night's pay. Even if the other manus did the same, it is just the cost of doing business.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Not necessarily, I suspect that KJs currently being sued and seeking information would be less likely to identify themselves as KJs on an open forum.

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KNOW THYSELF

One more choice:
Ignore the whole thing, go on with business as usual knowing the likelihood of getting sued is extremely low unless you live in a targeted city. Let them sue you, show your discs and walk away for free. There is no need to sign away any of your rights and pay someone to take them at the same time.

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KNOW THYSELF