Karaoke Forums

Something is wrong when a Karaoke manu thinks they can just take another person's business from them and confiscate all their sound equipment.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

We don't "just take another person's business from them and confiscate all their sound equipment."

If you understood what I was talking about, you would know that it was a VOLUNTARY arrangement. We're not "taking" or "confiscating" anything from anyone in that instance.

But we do, on occasion, end up confiscating equipment. What entitles us to do that is a judgment from a court based upon our having proven our case, and an order from that court directing the seizure of equipment, either to prevent further infringement or to execute upon the judgment. There is ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong with that.

In your eyes there is nothing wrong with it. In my eyes it should be illegal. In my eyes, you are taking away a person's livelihood. He can use that equipment to do DJ and still feed himself and his family. I will ALWAYS disagree with you on this. If the laws allow you to do that, then they should be changed. I am tired of Corporations winning everything and us little people get screwed every time.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

There are eyes that see the theft of music as taking another person's business from them.

That would be the taking of the business from a manufacturer who can not profit from their efforts in creating the music that is taken, and the taking of the business from a KJ who can not equitably profit from money and time invested.

When wrong doers are allowed to do wrong without consequence and the anarchy you seem to desire becomes a reality, there will be nobody left to whine to about the unfairness of it all.

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KNOW THYSELF

I didn't say not to punish them. I said not to take their sound system. If you need to take what would be considered evidence, as in the disks and hard drives, then that is fine. You don't pirate songs with a set of speakers and a mixer. You pirate them with a computer. Take that away. The equipment can be used at home, too. It's private property. Suppose the defendant is also a musician and uses his board to record music with?? I just don't agree with this practice. I would fight it tooth and nail. There are other uses for sound equipment than karaoke. Just sayin'.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

No different than any other professional (doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers, etc) losing their respective licences for wrong doing.

There's a word you should look up - rationalization.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I am typing in English?? You CAN read, I assume??? You seem to know how to type. Stopping them from practicing their trade, be it a Dr., Lawyer, or karaoke host is one thing. Taking away their BELONGING is another!!! That is the part I am arguing about!!! You can do OTHER THINGS with sound equipment besides Karaoke. Do you get it YET?? Is it RATIONAL enough?? YES, you take away his disks, YES you take his hard drives and computers because that is where the offending material is. There is NO music stored in the sound board, the speakers, the stands, the lighting, or anything else. To me, taking away everything is wrong, and it goes too far. They are after people for stealing MUSIC and TRADEMARKS. They aren't after people for owning soundboards. As I said earlier, it could still be used to in a band situation. It could be used for home audio. Taking that kind of stuff goes above and beyond what they are being sued for. DO YOU GET IT YET??????

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Don't you get it - they are tools of the trade. I get that you don't like it but too darn bad. There are rules I don't like, but tough cookies, that's life. If I don't want to get searched before going on an airplane then I won't go on one. If you don't want to pay to media shift you music, then play original discs. They are not forcing you to shift, you want the convenience, well one pays for convenience.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

If a plumber gets sued, and loses his license, they don't take his tools from him. If a carpenter gets sued, and loses his license, they don't take his tools from him. That is what I am talking about. Taking the sound equipment isn't the rules. That's some crap a lawyer came up with. You're like a bunch of sheep, all walking in lock step. None of YOU have an original thought. None of you see the injustice here. All you are looking at is some guy ran a show illegally, and whatever punishment some lawyer decides is proper you are fine with. You people aren't even human. It's like a hive mentality around here. Maybe it's because I grew up on Long Island. I see things differently. You punish someone according to what they did. You don't cut off their feet for stealing. You cut off their hands, which in this case would be whatever karaoke music they had in disc form or stored on a drive. As far as confiscation, that is it. Karaoke CDGs are associated, exclusively to karaoke. Karaoke files, on a computer are associated, exclusively to karaoke. Sound equipment can be used for a number of things outside of karaoke. Hence why I say that that stuff should not be taken. You people aren't looking for justice. You are looking for VENGEANCE. And Harrington is delivering that. That goes against what this country was founded on, and it needs to STOP!!

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Your country sees nothing wrong with it. If it did, it wouldn't allow it. But then I suppose you can fight a lawsuit and lose everything you own when you lose. That way they not only get your sound equipment but your car, your house, and any other assets you may have.

Now the thing I find strange is that people quote IPJustice and other sites about the legality of media shifting, yet not one lawyer has offered their services free to fight this "injustice". It should be easy since they apparently have done all the research on it. It's not like starting anew, the work is supposedly all done. It just has to be presented in court.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

What is so strange about it. If they can keep suing KJs and venues they can keep making money. The lawyers are half the problem. If there was no money in it no litigation would happen. If Piracy disappeared there would be no money left from it. This is why I think lawyers are slimy. It they REALLY cared, Piracy would end yesterday.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

If it were up to me I'd take their CD player in there car, and their car with it... The Law states they have the right to seize anything used in the commission of a crime. Had to get that stuff moved around somehow.

Jon

I say rip out there vocal chords....uhm ok sorry maybe that was a bit extreme

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My statements, opinions and conclusions are based on my own personal experiences, observations, research and/or just my own $.02. I'm not a "cheerleader", but that doesn't make me a Pirate.

I will attempt to make it clear for you.
The pirate is the only one doing the taking. Taking of music illegally, and wrongfully taking of a legit operator's opportunities for livelyhood.

In every case where a pirate forfiets equipment, that equipment is not taken from him. He is surrendering it as a means of paying for what he took. It's either a negotiated deal as a way of paying his settlement agreement in lieu of cash, or it happens through a court order (most often a default because the KJ stupidly and voluntarily ignored the suit). In either case nothing is "taken" because the KJ has voluntarily given up his equipment through his own deeds.

In every case there is an option that would allow the KJ to keep his equipment. Do you get it yet?

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KNOW THYSELF

I don't buy it. I see it as an over reach even to ask for the guy to surrender his equipment. The ONLY thing needed is the storage medium. We are not going to agree on this, regardless of what either of us says.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

If a crime were commited, and prosecuted. Piracy ( to me ) means the THEFT of another's property.

SC is NOT PROSECUTING PIRATES, nor are they even suing for piracy. They are initiating suits strictly against TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT- a civil, NOT criminal matter.

Now, if some KJ wasn't smart enough to answer the suit, they lose by default. If the default judgement includes seizure, that's the way it goes. The KJ was a moron, even if he wasn't a pirate.

However, there is too much mixing and matching of phrases here. SC isn't having a crime prosecuted, which means, win or lose, the defendants would not be considered criminals under the law.

Also, the word "pirate" is continually used for those that SC names, which is simply incorrect. Unless someone prosecutes these folks ( or simply sues them) for piracy, AND they are found guilty, they aren't pirates. I am unaware of this ever happening in ANY of the KJ suits. They are simply- again, if found guilty, unauthorized media shifters at the very worst.

The words "pirate" and "crime" are both overused and incorrectly so on the forums.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I find this attitude curious.

You basically seem to think that pirate KJs don't have to follow rules, and if they get caught, they are entitled to the protection of minimal consequences.

What you are describing is a condition economists refer to as a "moral hazard." By setting up a system that encourages cheating, you get more people to cheat. For example, consider health insurance. If you have a rule that says that every insurance company has to insure everyone who applies at the same premium, regardless of pre-existing conditions, then only people who have an immediate need for coverage will buy insurance. People who are generally healthy will wait until they get sick to buy coverage, knowing that they're protected in the event they get sick or hurt unexpectedly. Taking those people out of the risk pool makes it financially implausible to insure anyone.

(Note that I am not advocating for any particular health insurance system over any other. There are many ways to deal with moral hazard.)

For that reason, pirate KJs who steal SC's music and who get caught can't just buy music at the retail price and get out of the lawsuit. We've established a settlement program where they have to pay more than double the retail--and that's only if they settle quickly. Waiting to settle costs a great deal more.

If you haven't previously made a financial investment in product and can't justify or afford to invest, then you probably have no business being in the business. There is nothing unfair about that--but you still have to pay for the damage. A good friend of mine bought a piece of land at the height of the market several years ago. He borrowed the money to buy the property from a bank. The bottom dropped out of the market. He kept up the payments for a while, tried to sell the property, but eventually got to the point where he couldn't make the payments or sell, so he quit paying. The bank sued for foreclosure. After they fought for a few months over some documents, the bank agreed to take a deed to the property in lieu of foreclosure. Now, my friend had paid about 20% of the principal down and also lots his 10% down. Under your way of thinking, the bank should have paid him back the money he paid them. But that's not how it works. As it was, the bank took a haircut on the property (fair market value was about 40% of the purchase price) and probably lost more on the transaction than my friend did.

The troubling thing I see about your opinions--and make no mistake, you're entitled to have those opinions, even if you disagree with everyone--is that the way you would like things to be (your "normative" theory) is designed to minimize negative consequences for the pirate KJ while putting the burden of those consequences on the manu. You seem to think that the manus are a bunch of giant corporations with thousands of employees that exist to maximize their profits, everyone else be damned. There are some former manufacturers that probably fit that description--Pioneer comes to mind; they're huge--but the current manus are tiny operations. Domestically, they're "Mom and Pop" shops with a handful of employees. At its height, SC employed no more than 100 people. The owners did really well when times were good, but no financial magazines were putting them on a list of rich people. Like a lot of small business owners faced with tough times, they have put everything back into their business.

I really fail to see why you think that someone should face no consequences that hurt for stealing from someone who is, in many ways, in the same situation as the thief. These people aren't Jean Valjean and I'm not Inspector Javert. Nobody is putting them in prison for stealing bread to feed their families. Forfeiting a couple of thousand dollars for stealing a product worth 10-20 times that much is hardly a lengthy prison sentence. But it is a significant penalty, significant enough to remove the moral hazard. Otherwise, everybody will just pirate until they get caught, and if they never get caught--WINDFALL!

I agree with this. I try very hard not to use the language of criminal prosecutions to describe what we do. I don't always succeed; sometimes it is important as a rhetorical device.



You're almost right here. Like it or not, the act of making unauthorized duplicates of intellectual property is "piracy" in common parlance, even if that term also connotes lawlessness, robbery, and abrogation of the social contract. I don't see this as a terribly important point of difference between us. I am perfectly happy to refer to them as "infringers." It's just terminology.

But the last part isn't exactly right. The wide majority of the people we sue are not "media-shifters" at all. That is, they aren't "shifting" anything, or if they are, it's very little. They're acquiring it pre-shifted. To me, a media-shifter is someone whose only deficiency is in failing to get permission for the shift, but is otherwise fully compliant with the law and the policy. I want to get those people out of my lawsuits as fast as I can, because it is a waste of my time to litigate against that kind of conduct when it can be so easily cured.



Yes, that's 100% correct.

The way you people are doing things, I'm sure MOST won't get caught. Down here, there are PLENTY of hosts who do not use a single disk. I have sang at their shows, and not seen a single disk. I have been here since 2004, and not one of them has gotten busted. I talked to a lawyer friend of mine from NY, and she likes my current plan because it will help me have the upper hand. I intend to tell the places I go to that I will be using all disks. I plan on telling them that while I may have many less songs than a computerized service, they won't have to worry about getting put out of business for hiring me. That can be my part in fighting the problem.

BUT YOU people, instead of filing law suit after lawsuit, need to start FIGHTING the problem. All the lawsuits do is fill YOUR FIRM's pockets. That is why you won't fight the real problem. The ONLY way to do it is make the music available at reasonable prices for download. Do what you have to to get the licensing, and closing down as many of the p2p sites as possible. The record companies did it, you should be able to. That automatically stops future pirating. Then you can start making new music, and not worry about it being stolen, as much. I'm sure people will still copy of each other's disks, but that isn't half as detrimental as file sharing. THEN you go after the rest of the pirates. The reason you don't do it the RIGHT way is because your law firm will lose money. God forbid your firm doesn't get rich off this problem, unless you are some sort of saint that isn't charging Slep-Tone, you are getting rich off of this problem. Which MAKES your firm part of the problem. And collecting people's gear isn't going to help the problem. As you are building a collection of sound systems, pirates are popping up left and right, unchecked. Some may not know what they are doing is wrong, some may know and don't care. You aren't FIGHTING the PROBLEM. You are allowing the problem to continue, while profiting from the court fees. And the rest of you here are just cheering Harrington on, instead of telling him to get off his butt and fight the underlying problem, while letting companies like SC and CB own YOU, your shows and your music.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

There's a huge difference between Sony, Warner, and other huge record labels that have billions in assets to a small businesses like SC and CB. The former have vast resources. It took them years and millions of dollars and they still haven't been able to stop piracy. The best that SC CB, et al can do is recoup some of their losses. That my friend is reality.

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You can be strange but not a stranger