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HarringtonLaw stated in another post that there's a 2% tolerance for SC tracks. Can someone comment on this...Does that mean you can keep them if it's less than 2%, or just that you won't prosecute and they need to be destroyed?. If they find us in the 2% complience then what would give them the right to order us to do so, were complying...

Jon

Funny you should bring this up.

Here's a conversation I had in another thread....

Cueball is correct. I was not given specific instruction on what to do with the discs. I told the auditor I would delete the counterfiet tracks from my system (which I did before the upcomings weeks show) and I pulled those discs from my physical library. The discs have since been tossed out.

-Chris

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-Chris

Chris is there anything in writing that they gave you that states the 2% tolerence rules? If not, it would be nice to have one posted for our records. Seems the rules change on this alot. I remember seeing it was 5% last year, and really wish I had saved that link, or printed it.

Jon

the 2% rule allows for the occasional disc that may have been stolen or been misfiled.It allows you to pass the audit with 2% or less missing discs. We were advised those discs would need to be removed from your Hard Drive when we were in NC for the meeting. Fakes of course would need to be removed (I would advise trying to recover your $$$ from the seller if possible)

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Lee McGuffey

What brand were they, Chris? I thought Harrington just said yesterday that they only look at SC, and not other brands in their audits, so I'm assuming they were fake SC discs. If not, I'd be interested to hear why SC was looking at the rest of your library.

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Birdofsong

The fakes were Sound Choice discs. The auditor only asked to look at Sound Choice product.

I voluntarily showed ALL of my discs to the auditor and asked them to take pictures of whatever they wanted. I also showed my Stellar CAP and Chartbuster Certs to the auditor. I wanted there to be no doubt that I am 1:1 across the board for all manufacturers including the "off brands".

I am going to go through every single disc I own this weekend to verify that I have pulled all fakes out.

-Chris

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-Chris

Yes - This comes from the Sound Choice Pre-Suit Audit form that was sent to me when I requested my audit -



-Chris

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-Chris

If you couldn't tell they were fakes to begin with how do you know what you get in the future won't be. What was the one MAJOR thing that pointed them out to be fakes.

Asking so the rest of us can check our discs too.

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Transparency - I hired a neighborhood kid to rip a bunch of discs for me and scan for fakes. He missed ~10 out of ~400 in Sound Choice.

All of the fakes had paper cover labels instead of being silk-screened. They were printed from a high-quality printer so the color matching was dead on. We found them because of the texture and noting that the "silver" portions were dull and grey. I believe a few of them said "Memorex" on the inner ring as well.

I would not have expected the neighborhood kid to have caught those. But it does make me want to personally go through all of my discs again to ensure I have no more like that.

-Chris

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-Chris

Thanks for the tip

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I like everyone when I first meet them. If you don't like me that's not my problem it's YOURS!
A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet

It dawned on me that I missed taking the trash to the curb last week. So I dug the fakes out. Here is what one looks like.



Here is a pic of a real and a fake side by side. Can you tell which is which?



They are super easy to tell apart when touching them. The paper texture is obvious. But a quick glance while it is still in a sleeve is easy to overlook.

-Chris

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-Chris

Very obvious, the left one. Printing is not only off kilter, the Memorex in the center is a dead giveaway.

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You guys miss my point, you complied to being under 2% so obviously you spent a "great deal" of money already. Shouldn't that satisfy SC enough to use thier precious label on the bootlegged ones? Afterall this is about use of their label isn't it, or is it...

Jon

While I see it as very fair of Sound Choice to allow for a 2% variance, I am chooising to not use ANY tracks in my shows for which I don't have a valid disk or license for. I voluntarily pulled the counterfeit discs. Even if I would have been told "No worries, less than 2%, you are golden" I still would have pulled them.

For me, I am choosing to never allow myself to get close to 2.1% and fall out of compliance. I am sticking to 100% to help ensure I cannot be questioned about my compliance.

-Chris

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-Chris

Just in case anyone is wondering, what Chris did is exactly the right thing, and what is required by the terms of the audit. You can still pass the audit with up to 2% variance, but you still have to delete the uncovered tracks in order to get to 100% compliance.

Of course we would have to delete it to be 100%. But you only require 98% to comply... Here's where we are personally, I'll be honest. We have a number of songs (30 or so) that SC doesn't produce anymore. If we buy the 6000+ songs we would be way under the 2%. After all, we would be spending 350.00 more on CD's to gain songs you do make, and these are songs I can't buy anymore, or I would.

Jon

Chris, based on what Mr. Harrington just posted (see quote below), it wasn't a matter of you having a choice to use/not use those tracks that were deemed fake/counterfeit. The 2% variance is just the allowance/margin that SC is/was giving for you to pass the audit.






I understand what you are saying about the conditions of passing the audit, and the 2% variance allowance, and that somewhere within SC's policies, it is written that you still have to get rid of those songs and discs that fell into that 2%. Here's what I don't quite understand... After Chris passed his audit with SC, and it was pointed out that he had some fakes (unbeknownst to him prior to the audit) in his collection, why didn't the Auditor tell/instruct him that he now has to remove them from his harddrive and get rid of the counterfeit discs as versus Chris stating that he has decided to just do that on his own?

I think that's a fair question, and it is one that I am looking into for precisely the reason that you asked it. The audit acknowledgement does say that those tracks have to be removed. I will say that the audit rep who is on-site doing the audit isn't the one making that call; he's there to collect information and mark the discs. But if that wasn't made clear to Chris at the conclusion of his audit, that was a mistake. It should have been. I've had enough conversations with Chris to believe him when he says he wasn't told to remove the discs, so we will make certain to do so in the future.

98% to pass the audit, 100% to comply (either before or immediately after the audit).

If you do not have discs for the 30 or so tracks that are no longer in production, it does not matter whether you buy 6000+ others or not. (We'd love for you to buy the GEM series, but doing so will not get you licensed for non-original media on tracks that are not on that series.) You will not be allowed to keep tracks you don't have discs for and remain certified.

If you want to keep those tracks, you will need to acquire an original disc for each of them.

I will say that there is a very vigorous market for out-of-print discs, so you may be able to pick them up on eBay or elsewhere for much less than the retail price. If you need to identify which discs the tracks are on, there are websites that have lookup tools. (musicbookdeluxe.com is one of them; I'm sure there are others, and maybe better ones).

You may also be able to buy them from Clark Music in Australia as custom CD+Gs. We recognize discs purchased from them as valid originals. They are a bit pricey--AU$5 per track, which at current exchange rates is around US$5.50.