Karaoke Forums

Sad you cant hire "help" anymore. Isnt that the way you grow a business? Boss starts out doing it himself,gets so busy that he needs hel,hires employees to keep up with the overflow,small business is born. Small business gets bigger & now its a big business moving up in the world. Isnt that the "american dream"? Its really sad that we cant grow our usiness b/c of greedy people who want something for nothing. Im not saying you did that at all. You actually did it right you rented the equipment from her with her knowing you were going to get your own shows. This guy didnt do that he totally stole shows we had before he started working for us. One show he got for us,which we were not happy about but let him b/c he knew & liked the bar owner. Actually a resturaunt bar owner. We did not want that gig back,but wanted the ones we already had. Kinda like a marriage thing ya leave with what ya came into it with. Crazy but I DID see the warning signs but my husband & him kept reassuring me that he was not my brother & he wouldnt be that low. Well he eventually was. Like I said this karaoke thing is/was my "baby" my passion but my husband was the one who had to "work" physically to do it b/c Im disabled to the point where I cant work. So if he needed help I couldnt very well say no,so I had to go with the flow even though I didnt like it b/c I felt bad b/c I couldnt help. We just got screwed. We have hired someone part time since his cousin did that to us just for a "fill in" but wont trust anyone ever again full time with our gigs again. Lesson learned but still lingering with the jerk copying everything we do & stealing & using our business practices. Sad just sad!

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Kelley
Star Sounds Karaoke & Mobile Recording Studio


[shadow=black][scroll]You have to respect your audience. Without them, you're essentially standing alone, singing to yourself....KD Lang[/scroll][/shadow]

Here's the scoop:
Bars hire people... not "companies." If the host works at 3 different bars for a year and everyone is happy, the company no longer matters.

If you, as an owner, are not visible enough to the management of the clubs on a regular basis, you will be forgotten and the host will replace you as the representative to your company.... Your status with the club will drop to next-to-nothing.

[quote="/
Alan, you can't walk in someplace and tell them that your competition is "most likely" operating illegally. Do you realize what kind of hot water you'd get into if they weren't, or even if they were and you couldn't prove it? You could open yourself up to a pretty nasty lawsuit. Get proof first, or don't do it.[/quote]

you'd think that, but it's just not true....especially if you say you suspect or think.......

Well, then you go right ahead and do it.... let us know how that works out for you.

Thanks for that scoop Appreciate it!

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Kelley
Star Sounds Karaoke & Mobile Recording Studio


[shadow=black][scroll]You have to respect your audience. Without them, you're essentially standing alone, singing to yourself....KD Lang[/scroll][/shadow]

Just one more reason why I choose to be a "one man, one rig" show.

One of my old hosts is working with another company right now. They just found out Saturday night that the BAR manager took the companies computer & copied their hard drive. I know this company and know they have their discs (or at least had a thousand some back a few years ago w/33K songs with dups). The reason they found out about it is because the manager had a brand new computer set up stating he wanted to start using 'his' library - which matched track for track the companies library - even as far as a couple of fliers that were made.
They pulled the rest of their equipment & pulled out last night, but only after they bought the same model drive & swapped it out.

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

Wow that's one boldly stupid bar manager! I hope they approach the bar owner with the matter and help that manager find a new line of work. Sounds like there were plans to replace the host in the works.

Stories like these are why I use software that encrypts my library so it becomes useless if it were stolen through copying or outright theft.

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KNOW THYSELF

Just talked with him again today - giving the piracy reporting links (no response needed from anyone), turns out I misunderstood, it WAS the bar owner - he also is the manager.

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

Even when a weekly reoccurring gig and left my equipment there, even when I left it set up to tear down the next day (shutting down at 1, going to work at 4 and with no vehicle) I never EVER left my laptop with me.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

It's built-in to the hosting software I use (DigitalKJ).
It encrypts the file at the time of ripping the cd and the decryption is tied to my license of my software so it can't be played on anything else. When I purchase music through download, I create a .bin file from it, burn it to a cd for my archive and then rip it onto my system for encryption.
I wrote to their support asking about encrypting without having to rip from cd and they said that would be coming in an update soon.

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KNOW THYSELF

Seems like a lot of work. You could use something like Bestcrypt from http://www.Jetico.com and just encrypt your entire music drive (or entire system for that matter) automatically on the fly. 256bit military grade encryption. Works with any system. No password = No access.

That's a great container lock, but it has to be unlocked to do a show. If you have someone else doing a show for you, they will have access to your files.

In my case, my files are encrypted and my player does the decoding. There is no password required and the files are useless to anyone because they will only play on my player on my computer.

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KNOW THYSELF

That's a great feature, too bad all the software manus don't do that.
What would happen if they did a hard drive clone with the software & song files?

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

How does it work in regards to playing the music files? Do you have to enter the password for every song played?
Would you use volume encryption or container encryption?

Problem is, if you have to give that password to a host working for you, they can still copy your drive.

If you're using XP or win '7 you can also set up a profile for your host(s) that will disable certain functions/hardware when they log in only.

For example, you can completely disable the cd-rom drive and USB ports so no one can make or burn copies during a show. You can disable "copying", and other functions.

Cost = free.

How do you disable copying in Winxp?

Set up a profile for that user that disables the cdrom and usb ports. If you can't get a copy out of the box, it serves you no good.

Of course if you are using an external USB drive, you're trading convenience for security and there's not much you'll be able to do to guard against someone copying that.

Here is the typical MicroSoft explaination:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308577

I use an external drive.

with internal drive becoming larger, this has some potential.

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