Rexxx wrote:
PEP
PREDATORY ENTERTAINMENT PIRATES
1. Soundchoice went out of biz, after appelate judges laughed at them.
2. PEP a group of mostly lawyers bought trademark and catalog rights
3. PEP sold catalog to Stingray.
At the end of 2014, the Sound Choice business, which was owned and run at that time by Slep-Tone Entertainment Corporation, was reorganized. A new company, Phoenix Entertainment Partners, LLC, was formed to take over the Sound Choice business. The owner of Slep-Tone was (and is) Kurt Slep. Kurt is the majority owner of Phoenix, and he continues to operate the business. "Sound Choice" did not go out of business.
I can also tell you that I have been counsel for every appellate case that Slep-Tone or Phoenix has ever been involved with, except one (and I was very much involved in that case, just not as counsel). No appellate judge has ever "laughed at" our cases, and despite what you may have heard, we have won many more appellate cases than we've lost.
PEP is not "a group of mostly lawyers." Its members are Kurt Slep (who owns the majority interest) and a silent partner.
PEP did not "sell the catalog to Stingray." The Sound Choice catalog, as it stood then, was sold to Stingray in April 2007 (7 years before PEP even existed) and licensed back for karaoke sales.
Rexxx wrote:
When real lawyers got involved defending SC cases, discovery revealed almost no mechanical licenses obtained and no royalties to original publishers and artists paid.
A mechanical license is useless for a karaoke track, because karaoke tracks, as audiovisual works, are not eligible for mechanical licenses. Karaoke requires a much more complicated, individually negotiated, non-compulsory license.
"Artists" are not entitled to royalties for re-recorded tracks. If you re-record "I Will Always Love You" in a style that imitates Whitney Houston's version of that song, the royalty gets paid to Dolly Parton (who wrote the song), not to the estate of Whitney Houston (who didn't write it).
Over the course of 24 years of production, Slep-Tone created 16,103 karaoke tracks. Almost all of them were properly licensed at the time of production. Those that weren't, were unlicensed primarily because of clerical errors. On the handful of occasions were music publishers sued for infringement, every last contention was resolved to the satisfaction of all parties, without a judgment.
Rexxx wrote:
So the biggest PIRATE was SC.
Not even close.
Rexxx wrote:
Now all PEP is trying to sue over is use of the SC TM when a file loads.
Actually, PEP sues for the unauthorized use of the Sound Choice service mark in connection with karaoke entertainment services; for use of the Sound Choice trademark on pirated karaoke tracks; and for infringement of our copyrights--which, by the way, include not only the remaining Sound Choice catalog not sold to Stingray, but also more than 6,500 Chartbuster Karaoke tracks.
Rexxx wrote:
Cases get tossed as soon as defendant raises a few legal issues.
A. No real harm to PEP when their TM shows it's fair use and you don't need permission.
No defendant in any of our cases has won a motion to dismiss or summary judgment on a fair use theory.
Rexxx wrote:
B. They lost media shifting argument.
No defendant has ever won a motion to dismiss or summary judgment on the basis that they were merely media-shifting. In the fewer than 10 occasions where a defendant was able to show 1:1 correspondence (out of more than 1,500 defendants sued), we dismissed the cases voluntarily.
Rexxx wrote:
C. Their suits are viewed as frivolous and double dipping.
No defendant has ever won a ruling that our suit was frivolous or constituted "double dipping."
Rexxx wrote:
D. Proper venue for such IP actions is WIPO not local courts.
Where do you come up with this stuff? The World Intellectual Property Organization (an arm of the United Nations) administers certain international agreements related to intellectual property, such as the Paris Convention and the Madrid Protocol, which are mechanisms for obtaining patent and trademark rights in other countries. It does offer certain dispute resolution services, such as arbitration under the ICANN Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy, but those aren't relevant to us.
Rexxx wrote:
Just ask any artist if they ever got one cent from SC or PEP.
"Artists" don't receive royalties from any karaoke producer. They aren't entitled to any under the law.
Rexxx wrote:
I hear a huge class action is forming against PEP by artists.
Now THAT would be a frivolous lawsuit.
Rexxx wrote:
The only legitimate company to ever pay artist royalties on what SC created is YouTube.
"Artist royalties" on YouTube content would go to the creator of that content--provided it was properly licensed--which would be either PEP or Stingray, depending on that content. Neither PEP nor Stingray has licensed that content to YouTube.
Rexxx wrote:
Support the artists stream YouTube.
How about you support the artists by buying the music you're using? That's how artists actually get compensated.
Rexxx wrote:
Pretty much every bar in USA pays artists to use music through ASCAP so as an artist I'm stating publicly use YT streams then the artists will see some royalties.
ASCAP doesn't pay one red cent to "artists." They collect royalties for songwriters and music publishers and distribute those royalties to the songwriters and music publishers. "Artists" get nothing.
Rexxx wrote:
However, artists are already being paid by ASCAP for music DJs and KJ's use.
No, they aren't. And if all that's being used is a sound recording, the artist gets nothing anyway, because the Copyright Act does not provide for a public performance right for sound recordings.
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, I don't need iTunes.
Jimbo you still alive? Somebody said you was dead. I guess you can't believe everything you hear, still no Christmas Card from you we still on the list? Happy Holidays, or is it the Nightmare Before Christmas? I'll have to check under my bed and make sure no PEP agents are there.
