Karaoke Forums

I stand corrected.
Yes, I do live in the UK.
I am computer based and no, we have no boogy man.
Maybe next year...

I read why you are against them, have a problem understanding your reluctance to use disks you have spent sooo much money on.
I mean it's not just the odd few $100 is it.

We use a computer system because we want to avoid carrying or damaging our discs. (wasn't that why most people do this anyway?)

Even if we drag in a separate player, cables and patch this in together just to play this brand, we'll still get sued...and so will our club.

Their criteria for a suit is simple: if there is a computer in the room when their logo appears on the screen, you and your club will be sued. Their investigator doesn't care nor will they bother to look closer, their job is to see a logo and a computer, that's all they need. You will get dragged into a lawsuit no matter how legal you are and in the meantime, your club will fire you because now they're in the middle of a lawsuit. You'd still have to spend lots of money to defend yourself even if you are in the right.

It's interesting that this has all come full circle..... SC started out marketing to KJ's in order to sell more discs... then they went for "home market" even selling discs under the name "Performer's Choice" directly in retail stores. Now that for the most part, that has fizzled out, they're back to focusing on the KJ's and their business is lawsuits.

I know of one case that did not see the court room or cost the defendant any money. In fact they did the audit by skype. The person isn't out any money for legal fees nor did Sound Choice make any money off her.

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

And she's also extremely fortunate if she was able to keep her gig.
She also spent a large amount of time organizing her discs to prepare for the audit and as I recall, had stated how they were all over her house, waiting for the audit to be done.
How convenient!
I know, were it me, I would lose my gig immediately. Bar owners here don't care and want nothing to do with that kind of thing. They are out for themselves only and being named in a lawsuit certainly would not make them happy. I seriously doubt any would give the benefit of the doubt, nor would they wait to see what comes of it. It would be the end of karaoke in the bars.

I have the same problem understanding why someone would pull content as well jerry unless somebody has something to hide....

Yeah, it must take tens of thousands of dollars to furnish 7 multiple rigs with content. Pulling one manu's product from all rigs to avoid being named in a lawsuit would be a lot of work, not to mention taking the time to resell all the discs on ebaY or craigslist to recoup the initial investment. Seems it would be easier to approach the manu for a simple audit to enter into a "covenant not to sue" that all three major manu's are offering & be done with it....

Certainly defies logic, yeah?

Then of course when CB & Stellar come snooping around to see their trademarks on computer systems, what then? Pull all their content as well?

Sounds like a waste of time & money....

WOS
This is really becoming INSANE.

Let it go.

Yeah, it is kinda making me crazy with headaches to boot!

I'm sure you do, however it is apparent you missed the last post before the thread was removed (since you went way out of line posting personal information over a year old). The "number of systems" issue was already addressed... apparently you missed it so you can drop that at any time.

Understand that I am not defending myself, because I owe you no explanations whatsoever, but you fail to understand that I have been in this business for over 15 years. I did not purchase all of my discs at one time, but built them up over the years. For almost ALL of this time I have run multiple systems. Again; "OLD NEWS."



Since you have obviously missed the news (again), your continual reference to "all rigs" is invalid. As Birdofsong posted, we now run ONE (that's 1, uno) system. Your "news" was well over a year old.

Let's simply the situation; SC is a "vendor" with whom I've purchased a LOT of products from. That is a "vendor", not a "partner", not a "governing body" of any sort. I am under no obligation to enter into ANY agreement with them for ANY reason. I am perfectly free to discontinue purchasing their products. (Especially now, since they supply them on more delicate CDR's anyway.)


If by purchasing products from Sound Choice, or any other vendor automatically puts me in a position where I am considered guilty until I jump through hoops to prove I am innocent, or requires me to enter into a "covenant," I am more than happy to put my money into other companies. Not wanting to put the establishments where I work in jeopardy simply because I run computer Karaoke does not make me guilty, either, regardless of your insinuations.

The only one who has any right to audit me is the IRS (and yep, I'm clean there, too). Karaoke manufacturers are not government entities (nor is your precious KIAA), nor do they have the right to apply offensive "big brother" tactics. I purchased their discs in good faith. They are responding in bad. Thankfully, there are many other companies more than happy to take my money, and thank me for it.

Now, as birdofsong said in the post that you obviously missed; "bugger off."

Now I'm convinced jerry, some responses here, not only seem to be extremely defensive, but have totally become INSANE!

Had a pretty quiet night last night.
The pub I work does not have big screen TV
and the football was on.
I actually piped the sound through the PA.

Thing was.
Pink were in concert 2 miles away.
You remember going to watch a John Wayne movie way back.
Everyone came out of the cinema thinking they were invincible.
Well after Pink finished they all came in the pub thinking they could sing.

Did you provide a trapeze?

Errrr. No.

But no singers used a safety net.
One did fall on her A$$
but that may have been vodka.

I've been semi kinda quiet for awhile, but I figure that I should add some new info, gained on another forum in a discussion with Kurt regarding "investigation" techniques.

It seems that what they do is the following:

They scope out ANY PC based show. If their logo appears on the screen, they call it counterfeit ( due to media shift) and use it as enough evidence of wrong doing to hassle ANY PC based host. In other words:


SC said they wouldn't press the issue in regard to media conversion specifically so KJs would BUY Sc's discs to rip, and now uses the display of the ripped tracks that KJs bought as evidence that there is a probability of trademark infringement, and putting them through audits because they bought and ripped the discs from SC.

SAWEET!

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

CRAP. Unadulterated CRAP. About finished with them. May just do the same thing as others, stop using them, stop buying them. Really, really, really stupid business practice; have to wonder who is giving them advice.

Joe,

Instead of posting your spin on what Kurt is talking about, could you kindly link to the posts that Kurt has made so people can see EXACTLY what he says?

Oh yeah, about SC's promised new Gem series:

You folks may or may not care, at this point, but a little electronics and audio education from an EE/ET:

Even the most devout PC host won't tell you that MP3s are better than discs as a music source. Now, I won't claim that your singers will all hear the difference- though I do- but here's how it comes out on an oscilliscope- not subjective, but fact.

Audio Sources-

Vinyl- most audio range and nuance, closest to original

CD- Cleaner, crisper sound than vinyl, but some audio loss at both ends of range.

High End Tape: Not as crisp and clear as CD, but fuller, more authentic audio range. Cleaner than vinyl, but slightly less range


WAV and other "lossless" computer files: Slightly less range and clarity than a CD, but overall good sound. Most people won't hear the difference. Con: Consumer generated, no QC, so consistancy in question


MP3: Bottom of the barrel. Never meant for use as a commercial music source. Designed as a single layer P2P sampler, for quick tranfer, and small file space on what was then expensive storage mediums. The scope will show dropouts, random compressions, random keychanges, and sound levels. No QC, and dependent on operators, equipment, and transfer mediums at both ends. JUNK audio.

In other words, anything SC puts out on MP3 discs in the future will be, by their very nature, inferior to all manufactured CDGs.

So much for any SC claim to "quality"- not that I believe they will produce any LICENCED music in the near future...

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Well, to quote others on this board; "Now that's INSANE!"

(not surprising mind you, but insane nonetheless.)

So there's the confirmation of what's been said from the beginning.
I am also removing my SC discs. Not that big a deal for me, really, since I never had that many to begin with, so it's not really a huge loss of investment. Much cheaper in the long run.
Those that I did use, I will just switch to another brand for that particular song. I've already started that process anyway, and I've had very few people comment on it. Those that do (usually - "that's not the same version as last time") I just tell them flat out why I'm removing them. They usually don't care, but in all cases, it has not been one iota of a problem. Acceptance for the different version comes fast.
I'm in the midst of redoing my songbooks so it will be nothing to just take them out and not offer them any more.
Not as big a deal as some on here (WOS - but not mentioning any names) would have you believe. Certainly less hassle than having to sit around for an hour or so on Skype (which I don't use) flashing discs that have been cluttering up my house for days on end at a camera. Also would save me having to find them in the first place. There's another few hours wasted! They've been in storage for the last few years since our house underwent major renovations and now is in a constant state of "staging" since it's for sale. Nope, I think I'll spend the cumbersome 30 seconds to delete the SC folder on my drive.

It wasn't any big deal at all to eliminate them from our library. We have enough other music, and were willing to fill in the few holes that eliminating them created. We didn't even have to re-print songbooks, since we run a kiosk. It was simply a matter of deleting the folder and rebuilding the database on the system and the kiosk.

As far as letting everyone know, we put up the poster below next to our songbook kiosk. A few people asked us about it, but were quite satisfied that we were doing the right thing (and some outraged with SC) when we explained the situation.

birdofsong

By the way, the above poster file is formatted to print on 11x17 paper, so download it if you like and take it to kinko's to be printed if you want to use it full size otherwise, you can reduce it 50% to print on standard lettter-size paper.