Karaoke Forums

First and foremost: Cue stated that now KJ's are no longer getting audit requests, but are getting sued first.
You did not disagree with this statement, but only attempted to give a reason for it. The problem is, the reason doesn't matter. Being sued prior to an audit- or even a request for one- is being sued without a single shred of proof that ANY wrongdoing occurred. In other words, they are suing anyone they can, and maybe sorting it out later.

Throw enough manure against the wall, and hope enough sticks. Sue as many people as possible and hope to extract some "settlement" payments out of it.

I don't care what "side" one is on. I think very few of the good folks here- including you, Danny- really find that ethical.

Danny, the fact that you believe that people who don't want to bother being audited by some teeny company with a God complex is the evidence of wrongdoing for which a lawsuit is derved doesn't make it true.

SC has no authority to DEMAND an audit.

SC used these audits to gather evidence against the person being audited. Whether honest or not, no attorney in his/her right mind would recommend that their client KJ help SC attempt to build a suit against them. That tells me that it's not a bright thing to do. Then, of course, they have the nerve to CHARGE for it?

If a KJ wants to do so ( for reasons unkown to me), then it should be up to SC to pay all expenses, including the KJ's time, which is what the KJ sells to make a living. Why should SC get a freebie product (time) along with help in attempting to hurt the KJ? If the KJ is innocent, then SC has used his time ( his product) and inconvenienced him, and he should be compensated. If the KJ is guilty, then SC can get their money back when they bring suit, in addition to whatever other monies they ask for.

This is extremely fair to BOTH parties, and I have brought it up several times here, yet Jim, SC, or any pro- SC poster has ever posted a worthwhile reply- so I ask again: Why not do it that way?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

All they need for reason to sue is the use of computer period. If you use computer and are not one of the 250+ hosts on their list of certified hosts - I don't know of any hosts served that were found compliant to one to one that settled for money. There may well have been those that did settle to get the complete or partial GEM series library that they may not have had at the time.

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

in the last suit i saw dismissed, it was posted here but i can not find it at the moment, the evidence of wrongdoing was (according to the court) Kurt Slep saw the SC logo on a TV screen. that's it, nothing about a computer, nothing about anything other than seeing the SC log on a TV screen. since he did not submit to an audit, the judge decided that seeing the company logo on a TV screen (where it is shown on disc and was intended to be shown by the manufacturer themselves) was not a good enough reason to force an audit. playing from a computer is not necessary for a suit.

Someone in Lonmans situation, i believe, would have been named in a suit because he is in a booth and the discs can not be seen. your playing karaoke, i can not see what method you are using, so i will use the logo as a means to force you to undergo an audit that may not even be required if there is no computer even used. if there is any other investigation being done, it has not been shown.

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

My discs are perfectly visible from all sides. They are in tower racks in jewel cases.
You actually can't see the computer unless you were really looking - well except for the keyboard & monitor. Although you would be able to tell a computer is in use just by looking at the singer/audience screen. The guy that did my audit said it was the easiest one he's ever had to do because everything is nice and handy - he said most just have binders or boxes with discs in sleeves that they have to seek out each disc.

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

There's a company here that does that too; lots and lots of neatly stacked SC jewel cases... and almost every single one is a burn. It's all nothing more than a trick - you "think" you see a bunch of SC discs and it all "looks legal." But, the way it's set up, the host has their back to you when they load/unload a disc and you can never see the disc itself.



How ridiculous.

Are you planning on paying Digitrax or Piracy Recovery for your Chartbuster audit too?

For God's sake, MAKE UP YOUR MIND Danny!!! I find it funny how you danced around my response to you before, and then ignored it the 2nd time so that you could change your spin on why you believe KJs should be sued. First you say that if any KJ refuses to be audited, it should be considered grounds to be sued. YET, as I have pointed out, KJs are NOT being given that choice to do it or not. They're just being sued. PERIOD! Now you say that the ONLY thing needed to be sued, is if a KJ is using a HD. I won't even begin to list all the scenarios where that could be wrong. Let's just leave it at the words CAN YOU ASSUME.

Incorrect. SC has stated that they will not sue KJs that have all the discs corresponding to the tracks on the PC. Assuming that they are not lying- and I would guess that you assume that- then there must be some evidence that they don't have all of the discs to provide just cause for a suit.

Suing prior to an audit, or even prior to REQUESTING an audit, shows that they don't care if there is any evidence of wrongdoing or not. Again, I find this completely unethical.

Suing, then finding out that no wrongdoing occurred- whish has happened often- tells me that there never was any evidence of wrongdoing, because there couldn't have been. This tells me that either no investigation was ever made, or their "investigators" were liars. Unethical.

From what information I have gathered, it is my belief that SC has taken info from outdated web sites ( hence going after a KJ that that was never at a specific venue, on a specific date, as supposedly witnessed by "investigators")

AND/OR
They have acted on "tips" from KJs who weren't good enough to compete in their markets and decided to name all of their competitors

AND/OR
They have based lawsuits on the existance of a computer of any sort in a venue without discerning whether it has been used by the KJ in the show ( Hence, serving disc based KJs for media shifting).

AND/OR other scenarios without bothering to investigate and gather actual evidence PRIOR TO SUING.

Yup, it's my opinion that all of this is unethical- call me over-sensitive.....

I might add that SC has always claimed that their priority is to RECOUP losses, not piracy.

1) If they wish to recoup losses due to stolen tracks, I have absolutely no problem with that- find and sue the people who stole those tracks, not paying customers.

2) Since even SC admits that anti-piracy is not a priority, why the hell do some folks keep looking at them as the anti-piracy savior?

Last, but not least, you skipped my most important question. How about your take on the answer?:


If a KJ wants to do so ( for reasons unkown to me), then it should be up to SC to pay all expenses, including the KJ's time, which is what the KJ sells to make a living. Why should SC get a freebie product (time) along with help in attempting to hurt the KJ? If the KJ is innocent, then SC has used his time ( his product) and inconvenienced him, and he should be compensated. If the KJ is guilty, then SC can get their money back when they bring suit, in addition to whatever other monies they ask for.

This is extremely fair to BOTH parties, and I have brought it up several times here, yet Jim, SC, or any pro- SC poster has ever posted a worthwhile reply- so I ask again: [b]Why not do it that way?

Your thoughts?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I work in front of my equipment, my OMDs are in open binders laid out for all to see, including certain SC, um..., "employees" who have visited.

I'm so cool I can't stand it....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

If that is indeed your position, it is a position born of ignorance of the legal system, your own biases, or both.

The time for "proof" is at trial. 95% of all activity that could be characterized as "litigation" involves the development of proof. To require conclusive proof of wrongdoing before a lawsuit could be filed would establish an impossibly high standard. However, even more importantly, requiring that level of proof before filing a lawsuit would prevent most meritorious lawsuits from going forward because in many if not most cases, the conclusive proof is exclusively in the hands of the defendant, who, without a lawsuit, is under no obligation to disclose it.

As a result, when you advocate for such a standard, what you are saying is that most of the people who commit wrongful acts should get away with them without there being any mechanism for the wronged party to obtain relief. That is not "justice" and it certainly does not fit into any aspect of the American ethos regarding justice and fairness.

What you are advocating for amounts to applying the standard for criminal charges to civil matters. The government must meet a higher standard before bringing criminal charges, but the government has resources and powers in conducting pre-charge investigations that civil litigants do not--and should not--have. For example, the government can obtain search warrants; it can, on probable cause, hold a suspect and question him; it can issue subpoenas; the act of lying or refusing to disclose material facts to a government investigator is usually itself a crime. Civil lawsuits have been a part of our justice system for more than 800 years, and they have NEVER required the standard you are seeking to impose.

Even worse, you're calling me unethical--which, for a lawyer, is about the most serious charge you can lay short of a criminal one--because I am using that civil justice system precisely in the manner in which it was designed. You are wrong to do so, and if you are doing it because it is your opinion, then your decisionmaking process has been miscalibrated. Your charges are misdirected.



You are mistaken. There is not one single case with which you have personal familiarity or that you have cited as evidence of my supposed lack of ethics in which I was counsel of record for SC at the filing. As a rule, I do not review the cases filed by other attorneys before they are made unless they are under my direct supervision.

(Perhaps we should note the irony of your accusation as well.)



It's not a potshot.



I am not sure why you think he is doing this at no personal gain for himself.



Since, as a rule, I don't engage in "name-calling," I would appreciate your pointing me to where I have done so. Feel free to do it by private message if you don't want to cause a lot of wasted posts.



I find this request simply breathtaking. In one breath, you make a highly personal and entirely unfounded accusation against me, and in the next you demand that I ease up and be less personal? I believe the internet-meme response is: Wow. Just...wow.



Joe, there is nothing simply nothing personal in my remarks, and there never has been. With Chip, I will admit that I have sharpened my rhetoric at times, but that is still just rhetoric. I don't know the man. I've never met him. If I passed him on the street without him introducing himself I would not know it. I don't know how old he is, or what kinds of things he likes to do in his spare time, or his good and bad habits. I've discerned that he's married and does some kind of work relating to court reporting as a day job, but I don't know for how long. I know the general area where he lives and works but only in the broadest sense. My point is that I have no way of getting personal with him because I don't have any information about him that would be useful to do so.

It may surprise you to learn that I get along with virtually all the defendants I encounter. The ones I don't get along with are the ones who choose not to like me. As I was coming out of an in-person meeting with several of them a couple of weeks ago, one of them said that he was pleasantly surprised with how the meeting went, because he had been prepared for me to come in and try to intimidate him. Anyone who really knows me knows I don't operate that way. I could, but it's not my style. I try very hard to be pleasant with people, respectful of them as equals, helpful where I can be, and above all fair.

Because the KJ is responsible for the activity that makes the audit necessary.

EVERY DISC SC HAS EVER SOLD SAYS "DON'T COPY THIS DISC WITHOUT PERMISSION."

Why on earth should SC pay the KJ so that the KJ can get permission to do that?

If you don't want to pay for an audit, don't copy your discs. Period. Easy. End of debate.

When we catch a KJ who has clearly disregarded that instruction by making a copy of his discs to a hard drive (at least--maybe he didn't have discs in the first place), why should WE pay for that?

To put it another way, there is no set of circumstances where a KJ has copied his discs to a hard drive without SC's permission where the KJ is entirely innocent.

The "evidence" proves otherwise, counsel.

You've had no problem calling others by any of the following:
ignorant
Liar(de facto meaning for "lying")
deranged
functionally illiterate

Unless of course, that "rule" only applies to others "Mr. Ethical"...

First of all, I'm not a court reporter but it is "some kind of work relating to." Apparently, you simply took what insaneKJ said as truth.

I find it difficult to believe you don't know more about me since you had no problem telling SmoothEdge69 the make and model of car he drives with virtually no other information on him since he was new to these forums at the time.

My discs aren't just stacked, they are very well organized in tower racks. I have mine set up the only time my back would be against the crowd is when I would be getting a disc from the back wall - they kind of wrap around the entire booth. Otherwise you can plainly see from the audience when a disc goes into a machine, and if one knows what they are looking for can plainly see they are legit discs and not burns.


When they start offering audits, yes sir! Ridiculous to you is not my concern. I also use all my SC discs - ridiculous NOT to but that is my opinion!

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

If I might add to my previous reply ( since I missed another point there):

SC must, at the very least, show evidence that SC tracks were displayed from that computer as well. Of course that would mean listing said tracks, and of that they would have to be VERY careful.

What if they listed a track that wasn't even on the PC, yet supposedly "witnessed"??

Or listed SC tracks, only to find there were NO SC tracks on the PC in question?

Or tat the PC supposedly witnessed in use was never part of the show?

More importantly, what if they listed a track that they were never licensed to produce? etc.... How do you think would these things affect their case?

I don't hear much about specific tracks in regard to these suits- do you?

Sorry, but simply being a PC based show isn't going to do it.

Note to Jim:

1) Chip seems to have dug up same of the examples of name calling that you requested.

2) In the the original "irony" post I mentioned the positive ethics of the LV attorney, yet never yet never stated that you were unethical, yet you've now attributed that statement to me-twice. You are fabricating a distraction from the question at hand, and listed below.

You once told me that you spend almost 80 hours per week dong work for SC. If this is true ( and I have no reason to assume it isn't) then the bulk of your work income- your living- comes from the work you do with SC.

SC has sued without evidence of wrongdoing. In my opinion THAT is unethical.


Either quote any post where I stated that you were unethical, or feel free to move on to another subject. These are wasted, non-informative posts.

Note: I have saved, printed, and filed these posts, and no such statement exists.

All of that being said, I have the perfect subject- the one you are using these posts to distract the forum from (Remember, I was a debator too ):

""The logo itself adds no value or quality to the track. Assuming a singer actually makes a manufacturer specific request for a song, it's not the logo the singer is looking for, but the way the track was recorded.

A host could conceivably leave all mfr. IDs in the book, remove all logos, and still receive the same customer satisfaction with the tracks being used.

Which goes back to how tough it can be to prove DAMAGES for either Trade Dress OR the media shifting of the logo without permission."



Third attempt at a reply from you.....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

This is rarely a problem.



The likeliest cause of this is the KJ deleting that material prior to examination.



That would fall under the category of "investigator error," which is unfortunately a part of life but again sufficiently rare that your worry about it is misplaced.



It wouldn't matter, for reasons that have been discussed ad nauseam, and for reasons set forth in a published opinion in one of the Ohio cases. I don't have it at hand at the moment because it wasn't my case, but it basically said that copyright issues are irrelevant to these actions.



Because this is not about "specific tracks."



Except that none of the examples he listed constitute "name calling."



Joe, you called me "an attorney that makes his living suing people without proof of wrongdoing." You no doubt consider that to be unethical. No distractions. It was a direct accusation, and the fact that you won't own up to it says a lot about you.



Joe, I have answered this many times.

The trademark does add value--it tells you who the source of the material is. Let's say you're in a grocery store looking to buy a can of soup. All of the labels on the soup cans have been replaced with identical white labels that tell you only the flavor of the soup. The grocery store has a chart that says that Campbell's is on the top shelf, Progresso is on the next shelf, and the store brand is on the third shelf. You want Campbell's Chicken Noodle, because Progresso and the store brand have celery in them and you hate celery. So you reach for Chicken Noodle on the top shelf. But some jackleg has put the can in the wrong place, so instead of Campbell's you get the store brand, which is not what you wanted and for which you are paying a brand-name price.

Tell me if that trademark has value or not.

There is a lot more to these suits--including the fact that they are not just about damages, but also about injunctive relief--but that should get you started.

As stated several times in the past, I consider replies posted within a post rude, because it makes answering ungainly. It was so bad here that even I was forced to reply in kind.
Also, the main question remains unanswered: If you are claiming lost revenue due to the logo being shifted ( not removed) without permission, how do you determine the lost revenue? It would be easy to determine if the suits were about stolen tracks, but they are not.

Will you give- or is there- a clear and concise reply?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

1) Without an actual investigation ( and I think that by this time even pro-SC folks - what seems to be a dwindling breed, BTW- know that this has happened without said quality investigation- i.e. onsite witnesses, proper documentation incuding the tracks witnessed in display from a PC and possibly even the name of the KJ, and investigators that will show up in court with said documentation and swear to the particulars) there can be no evidence that any KJ has engaged in any activity that makes an audit "necessary" . "Necessary" is in quotes because said necessity is only to build a case against the KJ- it is of no gain to the KJ.

Therefore, the KJ should be compensated until or unless wrondoing can be proven.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Really?


And you, counsel, because I don't believe you are qualified in any way to make any such diagnosis, and you have made your statement above as a statement of fact, you must be lying....

Using your (somewhat childish) logic above, I haven't called you a "liar" either... I'm simply stating a fact that you are obviously lying. And both you and I are aware that there are a great number of unethical attorneys that will resort to splitting a technicality so fine that there really is no difference.

Wouldn't you agree... counsel?

Where is that story about how Judge Landis (I think it was him) says you can get a Grand Jury to Indict a Ham Sandwich (and then he goes on to explain it point by point)?