Karaoke Forums

Sound Choice doesn't recognize those laws. They say Fair Use is only for private use.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Our position is that while copyright fair-use analysis applies, the commercial nature of the use, the fact that the entire work is copied, and the impact of unrestricted media-shifting on the market for legitimate goods, weighed together, render those commercial uses not "fair."

Copyright fair use also does not apply to the use of our trademarks and trade dress.

What kind of car do you drive? I make SO much $$ hosting karaoke, that I struggle to keep my 2001 minivan on the road & clothe & feed my wife & kids. We are usually 1 catastrophic event (anything costing more than a few hundred dollars) away from being homeless... THAT isn't fair & if it threatens the very thread of the industry... Well, I imagine that you might be in the same boat... But I doubt that. Honest DJ's can only do 1 show a night, unless they can book a private day gig (no overlap), unless they're independently wealthy enough to have double/triple spent & secured (legally) a second rig. I tried to divide the discs once, but even with 8 different "summer nights" tracks, I still feel that both rigs suffered until a theft, that brought what was left together again & brought me to the conclusion that going digital was the safest bet... I mean no disrespect; we all make our life choices, but why sell something to someone & then dictate how they're to use it? If that was our thinking back in the Wright Bros. era, there'd be no planes... They'd have been sued for using wheels made for bikes, or engines intended for lawnmowers... Lol

"Sound Choice doesn't recognize those laws. They say Fair Use is only for private use."

Sound Choice doesn't, the Copyright Act does. It sets out what is and is not fair use. It also gives the copyright holder remedies to use against those who do not obey the Act. It is up to the copyright holder whether the want to use those remedies or not.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

We don't dictate how anyone uses the product we actually sold.

The problem starts when people want to use something else, which they made by copying the product we sold them, instead of the product we sold them.

From there, it's a short walk over to skipping the whole "buying and selling" part--a walk that thousands of KJs have made.

Except...

https://pep.rocks

(Not just permissions.)

No thanks. Too many strings and "ifs"....

You wouldn't be eligible anyway.

"Niagra, upon checking further neither Connect Music (I E-mailed them) or CMRRA Canadian Music Reproduction Rights Agency can give permission to media shift karaoke music due to the sync rights. So we are in the same boat as the Americans."

That should read they CANNOT give permission. I fixed my original post.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

You say that like it's a bad thing. (it's not)

I'll still get the tracks I want - and only the tracks I want - delivered instantly from a vendor that appreciates my business.



Or apparently, I can purchase the discs I want as counterfeit burns from a certified karaoke host... right? (I'm still laughing over that!)

Sure, every single CD for DJ's too, which allows for shifting, for efficiency - security of original purchased product - & convenience of use, within copyright law, DMA '98 & fair use. Took me three years to get over that warning AND the unauthorized public performance bit, until the P.R.O. royalties/DMA & fair use were explained. The point is, that a cease and desist order issued 1st, while not the most PROFITABLE method, would've been the most ETHICAL course of action.
Besides, this is all likened to: I sell you a shirt, with my logo on it (registered trademark), it's a long sleave shirt. Summertime comes, so wanting to wear your shirt, but out of convenience, you decide to use it as a dew rag... I didn't sell you a dew rag... I sold you a SHIRT!! THAT's IT!! I'm suing you for not asking me first!!
Let's just micro-manage everything until we're all afraid to lace our shoes in a unique way, for fear of the manu's wrath & greed for even MORE money from a product sold. Do you even imagine that Briggs & Stratton EVER gave ANYONE permission to use their engines, designed for lawn-mowers & used them instead in a homemade go-cart?? Or the tires/wheels that were used on the first proto-type airplanes?? Where would we be, if we just outlawed it all?? The Stone-age, that's where!! GEESH!!!!

There is property and there is intellectual property. Many just can't wrap their heads around the latter.

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-Chris

Chris
With all dew respect, perhaps you meant "Trademark"..

As far as your analogy goes, that's fine. The problem is that people who are media-shifting our tracks aren't using our "shirt" as a "dew rag." They are making a different shirt with our logo and trade dress on it.



I think we've made it abundantly clear that we have not instituted our media-shifting policy out of "wrath & greed," nor are we looking for more money for a product already sold. What we're trying to do is to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to say. We have zero interest in getting more money out of people who have discs and can show 1:1 correspondence--except as customers for future products, of course. But we need to identify those people, the 5 out of 100 who actually do have 1:1 correspondence, so we can go after the 95 out of 100 who don't. There is a cost associated with doing that, and since the 5 have actually violated the law (but in a way we're happy to excuse after verification of 1:1 correspondence), it's not unreasonable to charge them for a portion of the cost of the verification.

Really? Gee, We've always been told --by you I might add-- that your interest has always been to "recover assets" and "stop piracy." And now, you're claiming it's simply "to identify customers for future products?"


You should have "verified" who you were selling the product to in the first place. But your client's greed-motivated marketing practices wanted to sell to anyone holding a dollar. Now you want to go back and "register" those customers holding the product and charge them to do it? To do so after the fact is truthfully just stupid and you're just pushing your same lawsuit threat to scare people. The fact is, you've dropped suits against APS and have done nothing against Boris, both whom you've claimed have "stolen" HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS from your client, (more than enough to fund a disc that you're currently panhandling for funds). You've had a suits in Oregon and Illinois dismissed completely because they've been a sham.

It's really sad how you continually portray your client as some poor, victimized, shell of a company while your client doesn't seem to have any problem writing checks to pay the publishers for their own piracy actions and turn around and beg KJ's for more money.

It's all about the integrity and ethics ain't it?.... (you might want to look up the words, apparently you and your client are missing them in your vocabularies)

don't take out of context, stopping before the statement is finished skews the ideas. you get mad at him for doing it, don't do it yourself.


it was and still is the industry practice to sell and walk away. part of what we have been hounding them on is not coming after KJ's for following the standard of the entire music industry. to chastise him for having done what the entire music industry did as standard after expecting him to follow the standard is ridiculous and gives the Chip haters a lot of ammunition.

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

1) I contend that the "thing" that is made, is not a new product, as it is not being resold or redistributed, it is a software copy, being used in a manner that is congruent to the consumer's needs(the KJ, who bought it & uses it & keeps it... A consumer).
In response to your anticipated response:
a) You wield the term audiovisual work as if it's some elusive artistic accomplishment or something, but there's better "unlicensed" (so unusable) stuff made by amateurs on display, on the Internet
b) the trademark law that's being abused, was designed to keep people from copying a trademark & using it to sell a product hundreds or millions of times, which is why the fine is so steep, if that is your actual motivation, then your targets are the jerks that were duping people into thinking that they could buy a loaded HD full of copies, but no originals (although I believe the customers were criminally negligent!)
c) the bars or their patrons are NOT the consumer's, they walk away with a memory of a fun therapeutic adventure. The KJ, has the original product (unusable without special players that have programming to run the software) & the single copy able to be run, also by special software that doesn't skip, damage the original or require it to be a liability for theft.
2) Those of us who refused to go digital, until after reading SC's letter of permission in 2008, obviously were concerned about doing the right thing. Trusting SC as being a pioneer in the industry (forgetting that our own pioneers stole land, broke promises & nearly succeeded in committing genocide), but since the law is designed for justice & often someone who's charged with doing wrong is found innocent, because their intentions were in the right place & from THOSE intentions aren't harmful to anyone, or their revenue stream (using a product in a realistically efficient and convenient way).
3) If not greed motivated, then why not a cease and desist? Why go after the bars, who merely hired a 3rd party, most usually NOT an actual employee of the institution? Why approach this subject with such paranoia? Again I may be naive, but I refuse to believe that 99%,95%,93% (the figures don't seem to change, but the result has been different everytime I hear it) of KJ's were pirates (although that might be the only way to make enough money out of it, so I suppose I understand the motivation, but I knew from the get go, that this form of "music therapy" was the kind that doesn't pay the therapist very well, so the ACTUAL motivation had to be a people loving, bleeding heart hippy kind of thing).
If it ever comes to pass, that the ONLY way to host a show in the USA, is to be policed by an interested party/producer (the referee, who's playing in the game), then I will become an immigrant. CRAY-Z WERLD!
In addition ACTUAL criminals besides the fines imposed by courts, for their crime are entitled to attorneys @ no charge, are not burdened with proving their innocence (the burden of proof is on the accuser) & in some cases don't have to repay private citizens (like the guy who threw a Singer's monitor (24" CRT TV) damaging it beyond use. I could have bought a brand new TV & was told that I would be compensated, I tried to cut him a break & bought a TV for $50 from Goodwill (haven't seen a dime)).

your confusing criminal cases with civil litigitation. In a criminal trial, a person is assumed innocent until proven guilty and has a basic right to a defender. In a civil trial, there is no such thing. in fact, I may be wrong but doesn't there need to be some reasonable proof/belief of guilt before a suit can be filed?

There is nothing CIVIL about that! Lol

Besides the implication was that it is reasonable to make guilty parties help pay for the discovery process, when in fact everyone accused had to. Well, the innocent barstanders anyway...