Karaoke Forums

THIS.

Now all that scumbag has to do is say "When you purchase my loaded pirate hard drive, you are responsible for the monthly license fee from Sound Choice".

With all due respect Alan, just like your sentence (quoted above), you seem to be missing a word.

In this case, that word would be "right". (In your sentence, the missing word is "be")

It is a simple fact that the "right" to make a copy of someone else's intellectual property has always been implicitly reserved by the owner(s)/creators of that property. It is a fact. Argue all you want.

You bought a disc. Use the disc. You never gave consideration nor compensation for the right to make a copy and use that copy.

That means you SHOULD NOT be able to exercise that "right" without permission. There was a time when you could get their permission free of charge. Best deal going and now gone. Now they are charging for that permission, as is their "right". Each and every CDG they produced has that "right" reserved and the trademark designation that invokes ownership/oversight of the "rights" held.

If you legally purchased and own your discs, you should be able to read the copyright warning on the surface of each disc.

.....

btw - have no fear Bazza ... KJ Bill's HD does not contain tracks that would meet the requirements of the new program.

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Never the same show twice!

Here's a thought:

Maybe this whole redo will free up SC/PEP to go after the HD sellers like the KJ Bill's of the world by not taking the time to go after KJ's.

Hmmmm.......

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-- Mark

Agreed. Such an arrangement, if it included the material, would also partly protect the equity of dummies like me who did business with Sound Choice in the past. If I could buy access to the SC library for $200/month (or maybe even more), I would fire-sale my discs.



Would that it were so.

.........................

Ya think???????????

It's a good thing that I am an ODB KJ. When I was still hosting shows, (and that doesn't necessarily mean that I will not do so again in the future), I was doing maybe one or 2 shows a month. Now, if I were a PC based KJ (still can't bring myself to write PCB KJ... that's just like someone who mistakenly posted on Facebook yesterday, writing "Happy VD Everyone"), under this PEP HELP program, I would have to pay them either $199 per month, or $69 per show. Considering I make $150-$200 for a 3 to 4 hour show, we're looking at me making $300 to $400 in a month, and then shelling out between $69 to $199 for PEP's HELP program. That's almost 50% of my earnings. Even the IRS doesn't take 50% of my earnings in a year.

I'm so happy that 2 of you here feel that $37 to $40 per song track (for 5-6 songs) would make that $200 monthly fee worth it. And what if 4-5 of those songs were useless fluff (Gee!!! SC NEVER produced 15-Song discs where the KJ felt there were only 2 or 3 songs worthwhile on the entire disc)?

Back in the day of vinyl record albums, we would make copies to play on our cars cassette deck. Yes, we were media shifting. And it was fine and the record companies did not come after you or impose fines for doing so. That's just how it was.

Today, we're living in the digital age. Yes, SC is taking the position that it was released on CD, sold on CD, and must be played on a CD player. That's taking a hard line.

They could say... hey you know what? We understand it's more convenient to use a laptop and since you already legally purchased and own our discs, use them however you want including ripping them to a PC. That would be a nice gesture with a company who understands and supports all of the KJ's who have supported them over the years.

The bottom line is whether it's played from a laptop or CD player, those SC marks (logo) are still going to be displayed. Nothing is going to be taken away. Who cares what medium is used to play a track? Why can't they work with us?

It's sad. It really is.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Whose to say that this wouldn't be considered IF enough people pushed for it in a calm, rational manner? I certainly would support some kind of benefit of access to new music if you are following the requirements of the PEP/paying a monthly fee.

There are a number of ways it could be implemented.

Access to new tracks in exchange for donations/money they are going to need to license, produce and distribute new tracks.

Special permision to include HELP to cover new tracks if the person has been in good standing for a period of time.

Substantial discounts on new music/tracks for those that are paying the monthly fee.

Free tracks to those who have participated in HELP for over a year. Or more free tracks to those that Pre-pay for two years. See the possibilites are almost endless.

Perhaps they could use part of the money to sponsor programs that promote Karaoke.

Soundchoice used to be really involved in sponsoring contests, giving away promotional materials and the like. Maybe this would allow them to do that again.

Maybe they could start programs designed to actually help you promote your business.


Would they? I have no idea, only time will tell

-James

Like I said......I have my issues with it. But I am not going to flood the forums with a bunch of FUD until I have spoken directly to Kurt and asked him some tough questions.

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-Chris

It's my opinion, based on what I have personally witnessed, that 95%+ of all KJ's (& DJ's) are pirates to one degree or another. For example, pick any state on that SC 'certified' list and you will see a small fraction of the number of KJ's out there with SC content in their hard drives!

So yes, I think based on the reality of the situation, if new production were to be included it would be an OK deal. Not great, but OK like Karaoke Cloud. And like I said before, the KJ's that sign up to this new plan will be turning in their competition that aren't, or can't pay. Thus potentially reducing the competition via 'dime dropping' if you will.

I realize being a KJ is a low profit enterprise, but it's also become a very low cost of entry business in the last few years. There are literally hundreds of places in every State that have karaoke. Must be a correlation there somewhere!

Cueball, my point has nothing to do with the 5 or 6 new tunes. I was saying that a monthly lease of $200 that gave you legal access to the whole catalog, with the material staged up in some form as part of the deal, would be good for someone who wanted to do karaoke legally at a set cost.

Paying $200 for the privilege of media-shifting tracks that I own is not a good deal. Nor is paying $200 for the hemi-demi-semi-quasi legal use of tracks that I'm meant to steal on my own time.

I don't have a large SC library. I have both Foundations and 17 discs for a total of 77. I may have paid around $800 for them. Does anyone think it's fair that I should now have to pay $200 per month for the pleasure of being able to use them on my laptop? Let's see, that comes out to a whopping $2400 per year! That's three times the amount I paid for them!

I understand about trying to recoup your losses because of piracy but don't screw your loyal supporters in the process.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Were you aware of the certification opportunity during the five years or so it was available?

the fact he paid for them should of been good enough

sc is just looking for ways to get more money bottom line

the only thing your going to do is stop djs from buying your old songs

which is out on 5 other company's that are just as good sounding as yours
and in some cases is better

If you feel that strongly about it, I would be happy to make an ammended offer from my previous one in a different forum. I have chartbuster essentials volume 1-6. I'll let you pick any 3 sets of your choice for your foundations and 17 soundchoice disks. Straight swap, the discs plus the ripped music for the same. That means you would end up with 13 EXTRA disks of music that you could use with impunity and you would never have to worry or deal with soundchoice/PEP again.

PM me if interested.


Now at the risk of being obvious. When Kurt offered to do free audits, did you attempt to contact him and ASK for an exemption? Did you make any effort at all during the five years that certification was available to make some kind of arrangement that would have been an acceptable comprimise for both parties?

I know I didn't and now the consequences of that are coming back to bite me in the arse.. That's life.

peace

-James

77 discs did not meet the minimum requirement to get a free audit. i mentioned it in a different thread, Chris did a great job getting SC to offer free audits, but they fought back by making it so that many of the hosts here complaining about having to pay for so few discs (prompting Chris to ask Kurt for free audits) were not eligible for those audits without spending hundreds of dollars first to buy more discs they did not want or need. kinds defeats the purpose.

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

That doesn't invalidate the question I asked. Did ANY of these people go to Kurt and ASK for an exemption from the restriction? My guess would be no.

Now it is possible that Kurt would have said no. Guess we'll never know now. My whole point is that as far as I know, no one even ATTEMPTED to reach a comprimise.

If I am wrong about that, the person is free to either correct me here or in private message

-James

You were talking to him, but I'll answer for me.

I've used CDGs all along. I have never pirated any of your material, and I didn't 'pass up' the certification process, because I didn't need it. I bought the great majority of my discs new. I was trying to upgrade my karaoke recently, learned of the audit and certification process, and had every intention of doing it after we purchased our laptop, software, disc restorer and other equipment.

I'm not going to switch to laptop now, for obvious reasons. Your new system treats people like me the same as the pirates, so my investment in your product was ill-advised. I'll ride karaoke to the bottom, then do something else. Unlike some people here, karaoke isn't a critical part of my business, and I haven't made a significant investment in time and money in creating a computer-based karaoke system based on materials I paid you for, so I'm off the hook.

My heart goes out to the people who foolishly trusted you.

Thanks for the offer but I already have the Chartbuster Essentials 1 through 9.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.