"The majority of Muir's songs were in the karaoke vein — more than 24,000 files according to this BBC story."

http://digitallife.today.com/_news/2011/06/01/6762639-granny-convicted-of-online-music-pirating/from/toolbar

I'm just venting here! It irks me to no end that my pirate competitor can be fully legalized by paying a settlement of $5,000, compared to the legal kj’s like myself, in business for 20 years invested 8 x or more that amount buying karaoke cdgs for years.

My SC library collection alone counts to 1,145 cdg's, & at $24 a pop totals more than $27k (a very conservative estimate considering SC started at $30 a piece back in the early years). And the other brands CB, PH, PS, TT, etc. are not even included.

How can their actions (manus) justify what they claim “to ensure a level of fair playing field for all kj’s?"

A main point all along. Wonderful that a KJ can steal 100,000 songs, pay $5,000 ( $0.05 per track) and have a mfr. say that's fine with them and the KJ is good to go.

Actually, this makes it very good business to start out as a pirate, doesn't it? Way to go.... Brilliant..

Why Joe to you continue to post false information?

I don't know which manufacturer you refer to but one we know who asks for settlements is Sound Choice which will give a 6,000 song GEM Series with no duplicates to accused pirate for the $5k settlement. In order to do this, accused pirate MUST remove all SC content from that pirated HD. Stellar Records will give you license for $3,200 for all their products one may have acquired on a pirate drive through 2007 which include PHM, THM UK Karaoke & others & at this time do not give you original discs so you're stuck with the low 128kbps as opposed to SC's higher rate of 320kbps. The PHM Series would be 5,184 un-duplicated songs. The others (THM, UK Karaoke etc...) may only be another 5k or 6k songs with many duplicates. You can review Stellar's agreement here: http://www.stellarrecords.com/cap2.html

So estimated total with duplicates would be around 17k songs, not 100k as you suggest for $8,200, an average of $0.50 a song. Yes, still way under what myself & Brian paid which does sting. However, it is still quite an investment & the library would only be around 12k songs at best un-duplicated.