Karaoke Forums

You don't sign the agreement, have the audit, be proven legal and move on.
Where is the link that explains the proceedure you are describing. I'd like to read it myself.

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

I can't remember where the exact link is, but if you do some digging on this forum, you will find it because it's been posted before. As for the actual text of the agreement, here it is as a refresher for those who can't recall.
The way it reads, they are definitely requiring you to sign it BEFORE an audit is conducted on your machine. To read it any other way would not make sense.

KARAOKE LIBRARY AUDIT
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF TERMS
THIS DOCUMENT MAY AFFECT YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS. DO NOT SIGN IT WITHOUT READING IT.
THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT A SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT.
THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT BEING TENDERED AS PART OF SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS.
You have requested that your karaoke library be audited in order to have this information considered as one of the factors in
resolving a dispute between you and Sound Choice Studios, Inc., and Slep-Tone Entertainment Corp. (together, “Sound Choice”).
Your signature below indicates your acknowledgement of the following terms for this audit:
1. YOUR REQUEST FOR AUDIT. Your signature below constitutes your request for an audit of your karaoke library. Sound
Choice has agreed to conduct this audit at its own expense (except for incidental expenses you may incur in assembling
your materials for the audit).
2. EXISTING EVIDENCE. A Sound Choice representative has already visited one or more of your shows and gathered evidence, including photographs, song lists, and other information, that based upon our experience reflects a high probability that
you have committed acts of infringement. You have been sued for trademark infringement involving counterfeiting. In summary, you have been accused of playing karaoke accompaniment tracks that include a display of Sound Choice
trademarks, without owning a legal CD+G disc containing that track for each system on which you store that track.
3. REJECTION OF SETTLEMENT OFFER. You acknowledge that Sound Choice has offered to settle this matter on certain conditions. Your request for an audit constitutes a rejection of that settlement offer. Sound Choice’s policy is to increase
its settlement demand at the conclusion of an audit, if you are determined to have infringed its intellectual property.
4. SCOPE OF AUDIT. Sound Choice will conduct an audit of your karaoke library to determine whether you have legitimately acquired a legal copy of every Sound Choice karaoke accompaniment track stored in your karaoke library. A Sound Choice track is deemed to have been legitimately acquired only if you own an original CD+G (compact disc plus graphics) disc containing that track. If you have transferred the track to another format (“media-shifted”), you must own an original
CD+G disc containing that track for each such system to which you have transferred that track, in order to be considered in compliance. Sound Choice has also been authorized by other manufacturers of karaoke accompaniment tracks, including Chartbuster, Stellar, Pocket Songs, Priddis Music, and others, to perform a simultaneous audit on their behalf; your audit may include those manufacturers. Sound Choice will provide the results to those manufacturers, who may begin their own lawsuits against you if you are not in compliance. These other manufacturers will be identified on the day of the audit.
5. RIGHT TO TERMINATE. You have the right to terminate the audit at any time; however, you should be aware that Sound Choice may use all available legal process, including obtaining a court order, to obtain the information it is collecting
through this audit. Destruction of evidence, whether performed before or after the audit, may constitute “spoliation” and may subject you to sanctions from the court.
6. AUDIT PROCEDURES. The following procedures will be used to conduct the audit:
A. A Sound Choice representative will contact you to arrange for a mutually acceptable time and place for the audit.
B. If at any time during the audit process you fail to cooperate fully with the representative’s requests, the audit may terminate and Sound Choice will consider you to have failed the audit.
C. You should assemble for inspection all of your karaoke discs, CAVS machines, computers (including laptops), and any other apparatus containing karaoke media, whether being used for active or backup purposes, in the designated location at the designated time. If any additional equipment is necessary to access the media
(including but not limited to keyboard/mouse, monitor, or the like), you should bring that equipment as well. Failure to present all materials for inspection will constitute failure of the audit.
D. You should also assemble for inspection all of your song lists and receipts from disc purchases made within the last five years. Receipts for disc purchases may be verified against seller records to prevent falsification. Discs acquired after Sound Choice’s initial investigation will be matched against load dates on your system to determine whether infringement occurred prior to acquisition of the disc. An indication of a track loaded before purchase will be considered an indication of infringement and will constitute failure of the audit.
E. During the audit, each disc will be marked using an indelible method. This marking will not interfere with your ability to play the disc but will prevent that disc from being re-used in an audit of another company.
F. Sound Choice may employ software designed to examine any hard drives in your possession to determine whether songs have been deleted from the system after Sound Choice’s investigation began. A deleted track file may
indicate an attempt at spoliation and constitute evidence of willful infringement, as well as an audit failure.
G. You should be prepared to demonstrate that you, or one of your employees, loaded every song stored other than on a CD+G onto the machine where it is stored. If you purchased a pre-loaded hard drive or CAVS machine, you
should be aware that Sound Choice has never authorized a transfer of that type. Possession of a pre-loaded system will be considered failure of the audit.
7. SUCCESSFUL AUDIT. You will be deemed to have successfully completed the audit if you comply fully with these terms in all respects and if the audit shows that for every audited track, you own one legitimately acquired original disc containing that track for every individual machine (CAVS machine, laptop, or other device you use for media storage for a karaoke show)
that contains that track. This is known as “1:1 correspondence.”
8. DISMISSAL OF SUIT. If you successfully complete the audit, Sound Choice will be willing to dismiss the suit against you provided that you agree to adhere to all applicable copyright and trademark laws with regard to the use of Sound Choice
accompaniment tracks and to submit to future audits at Sound Choice’s reasonable request.
9. USE OF AUDIT RESULTS. You acknowledge that Sound Choice may use the results of the audit it conducts in any way it deems appropriate, including as evidence against you in the pending suit.
10. FAILED AUDIT. At the conclusion of a failed audit, Sound Choice will tender you a new settlement offer that is at least $2,000 per system higher than the most recent settlement offer made. If that settlement offer is not accepted within 14 days of being tendered, it will be withdrawn, and Sound Choice will be committed to seeing the lawsuit to its conclusion. In that event, you should be aware that statutory damages for trademark counterfeiting can be as high as $2,000,000 per
mark (there are two federally registered trademarks at issue here, for a total of $4,000,000). You should also be aware that in a recent case involving non-commercial file-sharing, Capitol Records v. Thomas, a jury awarded almost $2 million to the record labels who sued an individual. Because your use is commercial, Sound Choice believes it can obtain a significant verdict against you.
11. ADVICE OF COUNSEL. You acknowledge that you have had the opportunity to review this document and to obtain an opinion of counsel regarding it prior to signing it. Your signature below constitutes a rejection of any and all outstanding settlement offers from Sound Choice and an acknowledgement of the terms of audit.
IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH ANY OF THE TERMS ABOVE, DO NOT SIGN THIS DOCUMENT.
SIGNATURE PRINTED NAME
COMPANY NAME TITLE
DATE E-MAIL ADDRESS TELEPHONE NUMBER
THIS DOCUMENT MAY AFFECT YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS. DO NOT SIGN IT WITHOUT READING IT.
THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT A SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT.
THIS DOCUMENT IS NOT BEING TENDERED AS PART OF SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS.

Sorry, but anyone who signs that agreement must be a complete idiot....

I agree, and I really don't think it takes a lawyer to see the inherent problems with it...
As someone else pointed out, look at the repercussions of failing the audit.
It's in SC's best interests if you fail. If you don't believe it, then please read the document again, and slowly, this time.
Who is conducting the audit and has SOLE AND COMPLETE control of whether you pass or fail? Why, it's SC of course!
Now what are the chances that they will fail you on the audit? Hmmmmm... Now I wonder why might that be?

Thanks for re-posting that, Di.

My favorite part is #2. You are agreeing- even if not true ( and it probably isn't since I don't believe SC actually "investigates" anything beforehand)- that there is evidence of wrongdoing on your part. This means that even if you PASS the audit, they could sue, based on your signed admission. Keep in mind that you get no documentation from SC guaranteeing they won't be back- which actually makes sense, because the auditee could go pirate the next day.

Just how dumb would someone have to be to sign that? The KJ has absolutely nothing to gain, and plenty to lose, even if legit.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

It's only 4500 songs or so that are currently available & not out of print, not every song SC ever produced. I have more than that.

If you want to know which discs are given in a settlement, go to SC's website & inventory what is available for sale. That is what is given in the settlements.

This is really old news...

I have come to the conclusion: I don't care.

I have no idea how they will prove anything. If they hang out all night they may see 20 to 30 sound choice songs. They can only go after the songs that they think I have or somehow can prove they they think I have.

I don't have the slightest worry in the world. It would take years of them camping out at my karaoke show to see maybe 1000 songs at best. How can they prove anything? This is what I would like to know.

Boy, Some of you just did not read that did you?
If you sign that they go thru ALL your stuff (discs, harddrives, song books, reciepts, EVERYTHING). They can at any time they deem decide that you are illegal. You may not think you are but guess what they can decide that you are if they think that something is not right and use all kinds of legalize to make you think that maybe you not as legal as you are.
If you don't sign it then you can possibly get hauled into court to prove the very same stuff.
Oh and they get to look at all the manu's that you have not just SC (which by the way in my opinion is not any better then most of the others out there in sound) but CB and the rest and only tell you which manus might get that info as they are sitting down to do the audit. I bet you that it will end up being all the manus so that they can hand off to them everything that they find.
I don't care how legal someone thinks that they are I bet they would still find one disc from some manu that is a pirated copy. Even stores have been known to sell pirated copies of discs. Unkown to them but still they were pirated so you may have inadvertently bought one and not realize it.
Just my 2 cents on the subject.

Okay, here's a "what if?" situation for you:

Let's say that you're a KJ and have NO songs from SC on your system at all, no matter what the reason, you just don't have any. However, there are regulars that might bring a disc in for you to play.

Along comes SC who names you in a suit and when your attorney tells them you have no tracks, they say; "Nope. Our investigator saw one and we have a photograph of your monitor, so your client is is lying and probably hiding thousands of them."

Here's the catch 22: They have a photograph which is real, but you have no discs which is also real and you have no way of knowing who brought in the disc you did play.

So, let's hear from the "armchair attorneys" and find out what you think you could do if in this situation..... batter up!

Maybe the investigator brings his own compilation karaoke disc and asks the KJ if he can sing one from his disc. If the KJ tells him that he is not set up to play a customer's disc, any Sound Choice LOGOs displayed must belong to the KJ. If I were a pirate digital KJ, the first thing that I'd remove from my hard drive would be any tracks from SC8125 and any other hard to procure Sound Choice discs. Maybe the only reason Sound Choice has put out any discs at all in the past year was so they could use those tracks as pirate identifiers; since they have claimed that only a small number of those discs have actually been purchased.

I'm waiting for my local KJs to tell me that they will play songs from my compilation as long as they are not Sound Choice tracks unless I can figure out a way to remove the Sound Choice LOGO from the track.

How long before someone is selling a hard drive with every Sound Choice track with all references to Sound Choice removed?

I agree that they would not be able to prove anything in a court of law, but remember they have no intention of getting to court.

They want MONEY.

And I would not care either, but would you care if the clubs you worked at got letters threatening lawsuit if they continue to hire you?

I'm no lawyer so what do I know?

But let's say that Sound Choice is being every bit as heavy handed as folks say.. One of their guys shows up at your show, he sees you play one single Sound Choice track.

Sound Choice names you in a lawsuit, then calls you up and gives you the opportunity to prove you're innocent without going to court and hiring a lawyer?

What will the average KJ do? I'd be ticked off, but would I really want to go hire a lawyer and go through all that rig-marole (sorry couldn't resist the pun) or would I say fine do your audit and leave me alone? I'm thinking I'd wuss out and say go ahead and audit me.

But let's say you're smart, you know enough about being a lawyer to represent yourself. You go to court and the first thing their lawyer is going to do is file papers for discovery which means they get to look at your hard drive. Now, let's assume we're all squeaky clean here and nothing bad is discovered, so the judge throws out the case. They still got to audit your hard drive and it cost you time if not money to go through the hassle.

Are you going to turn around and sue Sound Choice On what theory? Are the potential damages anywhere near worth your while? How much is the lawsuit going to cost you and how many years will you fight. Even if you win, do you have the financial resources and the time to go through the appeal process? Sound Choice is probably already there, but if not now, surely in the near future with all these cases pending. They have to win at least a few of them.

For me, it's just a lot less hassle to let 'em look and have Sound Choice and their lawyers go away, but you folks tell me. What's the scenario where the KJ actually really wins by fighting in this situation?

Here's one, and rumor hath it that it's already in the wings.

Hire a good contingency lawyer ( I know of a few that would love this) and initiate a massive class action suit. Find every KJ who would like to participate ( remember, there is no up front cost- the lawyer takes a percentage of the win, and won't take the case unless they think they will) and go to town. This could even include those who have settled, if they feel they were coerced into it. Of course, they must come after you first before you can initiate it, but retained counsel has already advised that a contingency lawyer would love this.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I am no lawyer either, but no way the judge orders your hard drives over to sound choice for inspection... Only songs that were allegedly played and being sued for will be addressed by a real judge, "YES YOUR HONOR, THOSE SONGS WERE PLAYED BY ME AND ARE ON MY SYSTEM AND HERE ARE MY ORIGINAL DISCS...".



I agree here, only possible lawsuit I see would be if sound choice scared employers away and blackballed you from making a living(even employers dare not blackball former employees)... big penalties there and plenty lawyers would work on consignment.



For me the least hassle involved would be to not risk any of it... Even if you allow the audit, by that time SC may have scared away your best gigs.

Plenty of non SC Eagles versions out there.

Careful of contingency. A lawyer will be paid a percentage if you win (anywhere up to 35%) but you will be responsible for expenses such as filing fees, investigators, etc, win or lose.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I agree

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

Here is the way I see it, If you feel that you are not doing anything wrong, the just pass on the audit and give the above document to your lawyer and let him decide the next best action but at the very least get a lawyer. And by all means get a lawyer whos background is in contract and IP law. I will be the last person to claim that the audit agreement will or willnot hold water.

Does anyone know of any case that has been tested as of yet over this agreement?

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

If you were 1:1 ratio you'd be legal but if you didn't have discs to to prove 1:1 don't you think that there is reason that SC or for that fact any Manu would want to get the money owed? The big question then would be, If you have the music but no discs, where did you get the music? That is the trap you will fall in since you can't prove ownership ( ie licencing since you can never really own the music, just have licence to use it although you do own the medium it is on. (ie cd, dvd, hardirve or zipdrive). If you downloaded it and it had SC or CB logo unless you purchased it directly from them than it is been pirated by the download site. But don't take my word for it call CB or SC and they will confirm.

Now I know some one will bash me for taking this position but from all I have read and all the calls I have made leaves me comfortable with my position.

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

[quote="BruceFan4Life @ Thu May 13, 2010 12:03 pmI'm waiting for my local KJs to tell me that they will play songs from my compilation as long as they are not Sound Choice tracks unless I can figure out a way to remove the Sound Choice LOGO from the track.

[/quote]

I can do that using my Goldenhawk software. It's time consuming and a lot of trial and error, but I can do it. In fact, I did it with 1 particular track from my "Hair" disc. I merged "Black Boys" and "White Boys" together as 1 song, and managed to remove the SC log and title intro to the 2nd song. You have to do it by specifying the Sector range when you are reading the CDG and then burning it to another disc.

Nobody is bashing...

I dont object to SC trying to combat piracy and recoup some of the money lost to piracy.

But I do not find SCs tactics reasonable where customers that have spent hundreds if not thousands on their product are concerned. Hence I dont find playing any SC tracks worth the possible headaches, even if all discs and purchase records are possesed.

If SC investigators witnessed 10 SC marks and upon contact the kj willingly produces over 100 discs or proof of purchase(without the full inspection of personal property currently demanded) and it is verified that TRACKS PLAYED are in included on those discs, they should thank that customer and move on to real pirates. BEFORE any lawsuit is threatened and employer contact.

If SC investigators witness a KJ play 100% SC tracks, and upon contact that KJ tells them to take a hike... proceed with legal options.

But maybe I am the only one that thinks making customers PROVE THEIR INNOCENCE with an invasive inspection of personal property by threat of lawsuit does not convey gratitude.