Karaoke Forums

I know we but heads here and there. My question to you being from Canada is, Is it true all dj's in Canada Have to be licensed even to just play Music?


I wish that would be the case here in the USA if it was true.

reason I posted here wasnt sure you post in KJ section or even look there.

If a DJ uses discs, no. If a DJ wants to media shift to computer, they can going through AVLA. Unfortunately due to the sync rights, AVLA cannot licence Karaoke hosts.

It would be nice if they could and that similar organizations were in every country to allow this with no fuss and no muss.

http://www.avla.ca/

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I agree. Licensing would be good for our industry Not audits. Pretty much cover it all. All we have to deal with here in clubs ( non karaoke and karaoke bars alike is ASCAP BMI. That is covered By club and bar owner.

In Canada we have SOCAN that covers public perrformance.

http://socan.ca/jsp/en/pub/index.jsp

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Could you elaborate, as to how that would help with the piracy issue? No disrespect, but if someone posts here, expecting only a single member to respond, they will be disapointed......... that would be called a PM.....

Uhmm What are the manufacturers doing to combat piracy other than financing the ones they bust.? A license is issued to a DJ/KJ.... He is found out to have been Busted for piracy , the license is pulled simple. As part of an ASCAP/BMI agreement the bar/venue cannot host said DJ. I made the ascap part up but I hope you get the idea. I am Licensed in Massachusettes for 2 different Fields Lifting/Hoist and also Digging. If I operate and get caught the mass dept of safety then can issue fines. Dont even start with an industrial accident. Pretty easy. no license no work.


Johnny What is you fantasy of how the music world can be fixed. I know SC isnt go about it the right way. If they Nailed the guys via a real investigation I'd have no problem. Noooo Gotta throw everyone in a lawsuit first then sort later.

I imagine that the number of pirate hole digger invetigators is pretty limited and that there are a fair number of illegal holes that have been dug in Massachusetts. One of them may even have Hoffa in it. My guess is that you could dig a bunch of pirate holes before getting caught by anyone.

Out of curiosity......How do pirate hole diggers get caught? Do they get investigated by someone? Do they have to produce some sort of record showing they are a certified hole digger? Is that certification something that has to be paid for? Annually? Can a hole digger be audited at any time? If they continue to dig pirate holes, can they be sued? If sued, can a pirate hole digger settle the suit with some sort of fine (as you noted) or payment to the illegal hold digger investigator? Are they then forced to "get legit or quit!" ? If a pirate hole digger decides to become a legal hole digger, how do they become legal....by getting certified?

Makes be scared to bring a shovel to Massachusetts now. Or eat with a spoon....

-Chris

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-Chris

[quote="
Johnny What is you fantasy of how the music world can be fixed. I know SC isnt go about it the right way. If they Nailed the guys via a real investigation I'd have no problem. Noooo Gotta throw everyone in a lawsuit first then sort later.[/quote]

..I have no answers, I just like to b!tch.....I do know that MA has a ton of rules when it come to labor, and just about everything.......if you can run a business there, you must really know your sh!t.
I do think SC needs to narrow the list of people they go after....it would save them money(we know time is money).
As for asking Tim about Canada, I'd say from his picture, he's not a Canadian.......I think he's a Russian Spy.....

Venue education
KJ education
KJ certification program
Industry exit program (KJ agrees to stop doing karaoke for 3 years and to remain legal if he returns after that time)
Safe harbor to assist venues in avoiding hiring pirates
Monitoring eBay/craigslist/other sites for pirated HD sellers, getting them taken down, and getting them kicked out of PayPal and other processors

What are you doing to combat piracy other than whining on an internet message board about the things the evil, mean SC is doing?



The only fantasy is in your own mind, that we don't do a "real investigation" before filing lawsuits.

Maybe you should do away with your non-disclosure rules, and reveal ALL of the names and locations of the illegal KJs you have made this arrangement with. I'm sure there are many legit/legal KJs out there who know who the pirate KJs are, and what names they're operating under. Many of us have already expressed our skepticism about how we believe that you may bust one illegal KJ, and he'll be back in business a week later with the same illegal hard drives, and the same 100K+ libraries. Maybe if you make it public knowledge who these pirates were that you made agreements with, the legal/legit KJs could drop you a line if they see them still operating illegally or operating under new names illegally.

It's one thing that you're saying certain actions are being/have been taken. But, since we feel that we haven't seen that, this could be a way that you might actually get more cooperation from the legit KJs. Most of us are sick and tired of what we believe has been nothing substantially done after almost 3 years now.

problem here Qball, Alot And I bet some djs here dont pay taxes at all(cash based)so they use names Like DJ Q or DJ Dan etc... If they used their Legal DBA or LLC name if they were legal in the real sense. Other wise DJ Q or dj dan would change to DJ W and DJ Don etc...

What you're bringing up is an issue for the IRS, and, as far as that goes, the KJs in question could still operate. They would just be fined for back-taxes, and then have to get licensed to practice as a business. That has nothing to do with whether they re operating a legal vs illegal system. SC, CB, and any other Manu could care less about whether a KJ is getting paid off the books.

It still comes back to what I just said... You (the KJ) have a pretty good idea who your fellow KJs are, and you even have a pretty good idea whether they are operating with a legal library or not. If SC (or SC's Lawyers) were to make a list available of which KJ just got sued and settled (by leasing the GEM Series from them), and which KJs were sued and were told as part of their settlement that they can no longer host shows for a period of 3 years, you (the KJ) would still know if they were still running shows beyond that point.

1) That could have been left out- no help to relations....


2) How does an "investigator" witness the display of SC's logo from a computer when no computer was being used?

How does an "investigator" witness a host doing 2 shows in one night when he is only doing one show- in a venue owned by his WIFE? How about when the host's system is hardwired into one venue?

How does an "investigator" witness the use of a PC by a particular host on a particular night at a particular venue when said host wasn't even working at the venue at that time, or for a long time prior? I'm guessing site surfing....

I have been given to understand that "investigations" may actually be conducted in one manner in some areas, and differently in other areas.


If one were to attempt to go after a host for media shifting a trademark, said KJ has to have been witnessed to display said trademark from a PC source. There is no gray area. It was either witnessed, or it wasn't. If someone were actually investigating, it would be open and shut. No mistakes could have been made- period.

Statements such as " there was a computer was in the room" hold no water. It was either witnessed in use, or it was not.


Given the above, it's not hard to understand why the validity of SC "investigations" may be found questionable.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I presume you're talking about Rodney's case. I actually don't know the answer to that question. The investigator has refused to provide me with a copy of the report. I do know there was a computer in use at the show, but I wasn't there and whoever was there isn't talking. There have already been consequences for the investigator and there will be additional consequences forthcoming.



I presume here that you're talking about the Pavkovich issue. In that situation, the attorney who drafted the complaint made a mistake and inserted the wrong language for that particular host. Has nothing to do with the quality of the investigation.



I'm not familiar with the case you're referring to, but unless you are suggesting that there was no karaoke show on the night in question, that sounds like just getting the name of the host wrong, which is a failure on the part of the investigator to gather enough background facts, not a lack of investigation. Sometimes the legal name of the KJ is not apparent from examining the KJ's show. That does not mean that an investigation did not take place. Your accusation of "site surfing" is just a guess, which strikes me as more than a little hypocritical on your part.



I can tell you that the investigations that are run in my areas of responsibility are genuine, because I supervise them myself personally. However, large portions of the country--California, Nevada, some Arizona (not the initial round), New Jersey, and New York--were controlled by an investigator (a licensed PI firm, by the way) that made use of professional investigators, arranged for the attorneys, and so forth. I believe that all of the problems you identified above came from those areas.



The statement above tells me simply that you have no experience at investigating in real life, and that you don't have a real grasp of what is required to bring a suit in good faith.



The investigative protocols I developed for this project, which cover my investigators as well as those under the supervision of other attorneys hired directly by SC, do not allow the mere presence of a computer in the room to be a sufficient condition to trigger a suit. I can't speak to what the PI firm mentioned above considers to be sufficient.


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I would expect that every host who is falsely accused because no investigation was undertaken would make it quickly clear that he has been falsely accused. Considering that after more than 1,000 individual field reviews conducted by SC's investigators over the past 3 years, you keep coming up with the same 3-5 incidents--an error rate of less than 1%--the validity of our investigations is not what is in question at this point. What we have is endless repetition of the same incidents, over and over, as part of a calculated effort to magnify the importance of the errors and to suggest that SC investigators aren't doing their jobs...when the evidence to the contrary is not merely overwhelming, but nigh unto conclusive in fact.

Further, I would add the investigations of various Law Enforcement Agencies (Municipal, State/Provincial, and Federal) are not perfect. If they were, they would have a 100% conviction rate. So given that, I would expect errors, screw ups, inexperience and yes in some cases even lies in a minority of investigations. There are some great investigators (LEO and Private) out there and there are some crappy ones, just as there aare great hosts and crappy ones.

For example, I could say that the LAPD is a crappy and corrupt force (Rodney King and OJ) but that is not the reality. The thousands on the force do their jobs very well and honestly. The same for NYC and even Detroit.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

@Harrington
i understand you were not in charge of the Pavkovich case or investigations. this is not directed at you personally, or at your firm, but at methodology that we are able to witness.

i return, and Joe does as well, to this case in particular because of one thing. this case i have factual knowledge of the defendants and the situations. no other reason but that i know what was said, and what is true are different.

as for the 1% error rate, ok, yes a small error rate will happen, but with this being the only suit i can verify anything on factually (the confidentiallity that Cue was referring to) there is a nearly 29% error rate.

as you take over and do trhings the right way, i can see this improving, but i hope you can understand the scepticism when things are kept private as to the real results.
just look at Roswell........

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

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If your profile is accurate, you operate in New York City. The people that were in charge of that area for SC have not entered into any settlements of that type, because they are very much opposed to the idea of the business exit arrangement. (They are not opposed to a business exit, but the KJ receives no "discount" for doing so. In the programs I administer, the KJ pays a reduced amount to cover past infringement, turns over all of his karaoke equipment--hard drive, laptop, discs if any, and sound equipment, etc.--and has to leave the business for three years or longer.) So you would not have seen that activity in your area.

I can't unilaterally disclose the identities of the people who have entered into that arrangement. The requirement of confidentiality is a material term of those contracts, to which both parties have agreed. But we do follow up.

OJ???.......so you think they tried to frame him, like the jury had to have thought?

So, what activity has actually taken place in my area (NYC)? I remember seeing a list of multiple names in 2 lawsuits (that were filed about 1 year ago). From the KJs and business names listed, I recognized quite a few of them.

Aside from those lawsuits, I honestly don't know.