Karaoke Forums

I started singing Karaoke a few years ago and enjoy it greatly! Last year I saw an ad for a Hard Drive with Karaoke Songs on it so I bought it to sing at home and practice. That hasn't worked out because I don't have a Man Cave to sing without harassment from the family, living room is not a man cave. Anyhow, now I got papers from Stellar saying I am illegal with my hard drive and need to pay $8,000. I thought this was a scam but now I see it appears they go after the folks that buy this Hard Drives. I don't use the Hard Drive, I have to actually go look for it to see where it is in my home, and I want it gone and clear my name from this illegal business. What happens to me for making a purchase like this? How do I surrender my Hard Drive? Not wanting to get scoulded for being dumb, but when I received the Hard Drive it said it was not for Commercial Use without Registration, so I assumed I could play it at home for myself and I now believe that is not allowed. I have a full time job and enjoy singing, and I have have never had intentions of being a KJ/DJ, I just love to sing. Thanks for helping me to make this right!

Did you really think that buying a hard drive containing 100,000 or more songs, which would be valued at 300+ thousand dollars for only a couple of hundred bucks be legal? Using one of these hard drives at home doesn't make it any more legal than using it commercially. I would first contact Stellar to see if you can resolve the issue with them. If that doesn't work, I would contact an attorney who specializes in copyright infringement.

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

Yes, I checked again today and there are still ads on EBAY that sell this Hard Drives, like I said, Super Duper, I made a dumb decision and I am trying to figure out what's the options I have. Thanks!

How did Stellar find out that you bought this drive, if you haven't used it outside your home?

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Good question. I have a couple more...

Did the alleged letter come by regular mail (in which case, they would have to know your home address)?
OR
Did the alleged letter come by email (in which case, they would have to know your email address)?

Can you post the letter?

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

If we’re talking about the same Stellar - - - - I could be wrong but wasn’t it Bastiat the head honcho of the now-defunct Stellar Records/PHM? Just wondering.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

In my opinion this is just a shake down scam. The only company that has really tried to recover money is SC aka PEP, and even they never went after the home user abuser. If it were easy to go after the home user crowd, it would have been done a long time ago. This is another one of these situations where some con man is trying to squeeze money out of the easily fooled. Have you ever thought that the one's selling the Hard Drive for a few hundred are working with, or maybe the same people now trying to extort several thousand?

^ This^
A very popular business plan..

Of course the OP and many many others think these drives are above board. Very few people research or come to places like this before buying. If someone seems to be legally selling it on respected sites, they assume it's OK to purchase. Why would they not? That's where some of the people here need to lighten up and give some of these people a break instead of ripping them when they come here for help. It's probably one of the key reasons this place is like a ghost town...

OP, the best advise is to seek legal counsel. I know it's a pain but that is what you should do. In a nut shell, those drives are not legal and the copyright holders do not grant permission and are not compensated for those drive purchases.

When you seek counsel, ask about the possibility of returning the favor by attempting to recoup damages from the seller. They usually misrepresent their "product" and it should not be hard to hold them liable. Maybe if there were more repercussions, they might think twice when placing their ads.

I am just guessing here but it may be that the seller has been hit by Stellar or others and turning over sales records was part of the discovery. This is just a guess. If it were me I would assume the worst and seek counsel.

You will get some decent opinions here but no one here can look at all the facts and give you the right answers. Take anything provided here as general at best.

And seek legal counsel.

That's why I asked him to post the letter he received here. Some of us would be able to tell right away whether it was fake, reinforcing your scam theory. If it was an email, it's easy to do. If it was a letter received, just scan it and save it as a PDF file. If you don't have a program that can save files as PDF's... here's one that's free.. it's called PrimoPDF:

http://www.primopdf.com/

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

Or he could get Libra Office, also free, which creates PDFs.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

I'm guessing it's a scam set up by the seller. He sells the drives then follows up with communication saying you have illegal content and tries to shake you down for whatever they can. Personally, I'd report the scammer for some kind of extortion or likely racketeering.

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DJ Don

CajunSingin joined a few days ago with 3 posts to date and wants "info" now that he has, seemingly, found this site but couldn't seem to find it before he bought the HD...LMMFAO

Someone asked if Bastiat was the head-honcho at Stellar.
Most likely, CajunSingin is Bastiat.

Do you hear this person...quaking in their boots at the thought of being sued.

Have you seen the "letter" or "email" posted, YET....ummm, NO.

This is NOTING but a scare tactic to either prevent people from buying off EBAY or to get information from the ideas that people in here post to see what may be viable on how to proceed. Such as, "How did Stellar get your address? I'm sure someone will give ideas on how that happened...Valuable information if someone wanted to sue...don't you think?

Probably PEP thinking on buying the Stellar Brand or just wanting to keep up the pressure on KJs, as a little rattling of the cage may go a long way, in PEP's mind, just to keep people pissed-off, even though PEP doesn't have a pot-to-piss-in.

HIGHLY doubt that.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

They aren't.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Might be doubtful Lonnie, but then how would the entity sending the letter know who bought the hard drive? Unless of course they breached to sales list of the hard drive sellers. Maybe the hard drive sellers sold their sales list to the collector, representing Stellar. One thing is for sure no manu to date has tried to do anything about the home market. Jim H came on here many times and said the target for PEP was venues primarily, and even hosts were collateral damage. One thing that puzzles me about all of this, a person buys a hard drive so they can practice at home, they don't even know where it is? Really after spending a few hundred dollars for something you don't use it, what is that all about? Especially since now they are being threatened and facing legal costs. It just doesn't pass the smell test, if you know what I mean?

PEP isn't Stellar. If Stellar is going after hard drive buyers - no matter who, more power to them. They should be going after the sellers, and (speculative) quite possible DID go after a seller and had him give up who they sold to which in turn would give the email and even home addresses to where it was shipped.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Not a scam, and no, CajunSingin and Bastiat are not one and the same. I have no idea who CajunSingin is and obviously I can't comment on any case in particular anyway, but it looks like I'm not the only one whose noticed that he just joined yesterday and is already navigating this forum like a pro. Just begs the question if CajunSingin is also a forum member under a different identity. Nevertheless the preferred targets are KJs who have illegally built massive libraries of karaoke content but home users are equally guilty of infringement. There isn't an obvious way of distinguishing whether a purchaser of an illegal hard drive is a home user or a KJ from sales records obtained through discovery, but be as it may, once the process has been started against a seller/buyer, there's no turning back. I've seen many posts over these last several months where just about all of you have condemned these hard drive sellers and buyers. It will be interesting to see how many of you will still support that idea now that action has finally been taken in the direction of ridding the industry of this scourge. If someone has sold, selling or purchased an illegal hard drive, the likelihood that they will be discovered and dealt with is very high.

Nothing to indicate he's a regular user on our side.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!