Karaoke Forums

Don't you already do that?

And how's that working out for you?

I'm sorry, but I have about 720 Sound Choice disks that I purchased one by one in the last 9 years. If you take an average price of only $20 per disk (which is a low average!!) I altogether spent a little more than $14,000 on those disks. How does that compare to $8500??

And no, I won't go through the audit process, since they charge me money to prove I'm legal! So first I'm a loyal customer and buy disk after disk and then I have to pay to prove I'm legal?? I don't think so...

I rather take it to the courts and have a free way of proving I'm legal... and besides, I REALLY want to so see a judgement in court about this to finally set all the rumors of what if to rest.

Chip: didn't even you yourself once state that a written contract supercedes common/written law?

If soundchoice wants to make deleting ALL manufacturers a condition of settling, then the person will either have to sign or go to court. If they sign, I would think that would make it perfectly enforceable. In my non legal opinion that is. Maybe Mr. Harrington would have a better opinion on that.

-james

Although § 43 of the Lanham Act is referred to as "unfair competition," the parties do not have to be direct competitors for the section to apply.



Harm to SC's customers is damage to SC, if indirect. We took another look at the standing question and, because we are not seeking damages for the competitive injury to our customers, but rather injunctive relief, we now believe we have standing to pursue it--and that it is fair and reasonable to do so, in light of the way that not doing so creates a loophole for pirates to operate.

We are not seeking to enforce anyone else's rights, nor to dictate terms on which other manus may license others. We are simply seeking to prevent the competitive injury that the use of pirated materials belonging to other manus causes to our customers.

Of course $14,400 is more money than $8500, but you also have more material. Your per-track price is about the same, but you didn't buy in volume--if you had, you would have gotten it for less money. We wouldn't settle on terms that were spread over 9 years, but if we did, our formula would result in a nominal-dollar price of over $17000.


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That's perfectly fine. Of course, there have already been several judgments, including a recent one for $750,000, in which the judge went far beyond our argument in laying out the basis for such a large judgment.

Operative phrase: "IF they sign..."

I believe that their requirement to delete any tracks from other manufacturers is beyond the scope of their suit. Besides, didn't he say ALL tracks that aren't 1:1? So that would kill all your purchases from Zoom or Tricerasoft wouldn't it?

Would YOU sign?

Not much less. SC "Sale Price" back then was if you purchased $3,000 worth of discs you would receive a small discount (10%) for the volume purchase. And perhaps a hat.

Besides, $14,400.00 financed over a 5-year span is still a better deal than s-l-o-w-l-y acquiring the same tracks over the same time.

yes, I would sign because I have receipts for all of my zoom, sbi etc tracks purchased thru tricerasoft. I'm still only using one copy, so that makes them 1:1 in my book. If soundchoice wanted to quibble over something so trivial *in my opinion* then that would be a different matter.

As I indicated earlier, it is not beyond the scope of the most recently filed suit. We are requesting injunctive relief against piracy of all manufacturers' tracks.

And, to be precise, it is not "ALL tracks that aren't 1:1," but rather all pirated tracks. Tracks that were purchased or acquired in a way that the manufacturer permits--such as downloading, as to Tricerasoft--would not need to be 1:1 if the manufacturer allows multi-rigging with a single purchase. (For downloads, the 1:1 rule would be in comparison to the purchase, not the media, since there is no medium.) I'm not aware of any manu that does that, however.

That was a judgement in absent of the plaintiff. I'm talking about actually being there, INCLUDING the disks and then see what the judge has to say to that.
Several? Would you please be so kind and refer to them so I can take a look at it? Because I can't find any where the plaintiff actually went all the way to the court, showed up with all of his disks, etc... thanks!

I think you mean "defendant" there, but here's the thing: If a defendant produced discs in discovery, and those discs demonstrated 1:1 correspondence, then there would be a dismissal. We don't move forward with cases when the defendant produces 1:1 discs, unless there is some other conduct (like selling pre-loaded hard drives) that is a separate infringement.

Severin, if for some strange reason, you wound up in court with your discs for an audit, I wouldn't want to be there and listen to the judge berating not only you but your attorney for wasting the Court's time. One of the reasons for a Discovery is to settle things as much as possible BEFORE trial. The first question would be "Why didn't you produce the discs at the time of Discovery". In other words, an audit will never happen in a court room.

_________________
You can be strange but not a stranger

Because their lawsuit is "trademark" remember?.... State the items of property (i.e. songs you see displayed that created the infringement) and the KJ will produce the associated disc(s) for the alleged infringement(s). Anything else above that is a fishing expedition.

Doing the math work here...

If your average SC discs contains 15 tracks per disc, then 4800 tracks in the GEM Series would work out to be 320 discs (as compared to your 720 discs).

Now, 320 discs divided by $8500 works out to $26.76 per disc (as compared to the stores originally selling SC for $30 per disc (back in 1996), to them selling for $23 (and less) per disc years later). Now, changing your low-end average figure of $20 per disc to (let's say) $25, that would equal $18,000. If you were to compare that to the above figure for 320 GEM discs, you would have to double the amount of GEM discs to 640, and then add an additional 80 discs to that, which would bring the GEM total to $19,140 (just to be equal to your 720 discs at $18,000).

Of course, the other thing is, you didn't spend that $18,000 all at once. You spent it over the course of (about) 9 years. I'm pretty sure that SC would be willing to offer financing to the Pirates who agreed to settle, but I doubt that they would be willing to spread it out over the course of 9 years... I would think maybe 5 years maximum.

But you could. The cost to finance $18,000 over 5 (not 9 years) at a rate of 6% works out to approx $350/month ($347 actually) which is only a couple nights a month to pay that and have all the music at one time.

That's quite a stretch and I would love to see it tried.
Since you ignored my question above, I'll ask again. Got any case law to back it up?

Got any case law to the contrary?

It's being tried right now, so give it a look.

There are two lines of cases (what is generally referred to as a "circuit split") on the question of who has standing to bring a claim under 43(a). One line, called the "categorical approach," says that only competitors may bring a claim. The other, called the "basic approach," applies a five-factor test balancing indicia of standing. Neither approach requires that the competitors be direct competitors. Our position is that when a defendant is supplying the market with counterfeit goods--regardless of whether they are ours or someone else's--they are in competition with us. The fact that we provide our goods through others does not mean that we aren't competitors. And to the extent that the defendant is actually making the counterfeits, such as when a single-rig operator makes a second rig, we are direct competitors.

There is an excellent discussion in Famous Horse Inc. v. 5th Ave. Photo Inc., 624 F.3d 106 (2d Cir. 2010), on this question. In that case, the court found that the plaintiff had standing even though the plaintiff and the defendants were at different levels in the commercial tree.

Of course not, silly!
If it hasn't been tried, there will be no case law.
See the logic there?

It will certainly be interesting to know what the outcome will be.

I would agree with you that there is competition when a defendant makes a second rig. Clearly they are producing goods and are in direct competition with you.
But what about the KJ that bought his drive, for example, and didn't make a copy? He is not producing any goods.
I would submit that in such a case there is no competition against you and that you would be suing the wrong person. In such a case you should be suing the drive producers. Which reminds me.
Why aren't you? They're easy enough to find.


This case in comparison to yours is quite a reach, if I do say so. I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens, if it ever gets to a court room in a real decision and not a default one (I seriously doubt that will ever happen).