Karaoke Forums

You are at a garage sale or online. There are a bunch of discs for sale at a ridiculously great price.

The seller states that they have only been used once- to rip to their PC- and they don't need them anymore.

Do you:

1) Assume the seller is as fully informed as we are on the forums, is engaged in a deliberate act of piracy/duplicate sales, and pass on the deal because you don't want to be a part of that? Also, do you report them to whoever reporters report people to?

OR

2) Since the seller stated openly what they were doing, assume that the seller is uninformed, and figures that this is S.O.P.?

If that's the case, do you:

A) Figure the seller is responsible for their own actions, figure it's a great business deal, shut up,and buy the discs?

B) Feel it is you duty to tell the seller that you feel that what they are doing is wrong and explain why. Also, after doing so, do you believe the seller will hold on to the discs, or simply wait for the next offer?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I would feel responsible to make sure the seller has all of the information pertinent to the sell, i.e., that he is about to become illegal.

After that, though, if he still wants to sell the discs, my conscious would be clean! It's perfectly legal to buy the discs, and the consequences of the sale for the seller are ultimately not your concern, especially if you educated them with what you know.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I don't think that there is really any reason to believe that the disks were ripped and immediately put up for sale. I know of a local guy that spent his severance package on a karaoke system and music. He lasted about a year, never had more than one show at a time. All of his stuff is for sale now.

Also, most of my disks have only been "out" once (at most). I have two libraries, so half were stuffed in a large CD binder - never used. The other half mainly were ripped once, but some were re-ripped twice to accomplish a higher bit rate.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

I'd buy the discs, tell him he shouldn't use the files he ripped, AFTER the sale was done.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I agree with TopherM

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

This is a TRUE STORY.......

Called a guy in Kansas awhile ago who had approx. 450 discs for sale. He explained to me they were originals and the manus ranged from DK, SC, ZOOM, PH, etc. The asking price was pretty low so I spent some time trying to ascertain exactly what I was dealing with. This guy assured me everything he was selling was an "original manufacturers disc" and he was aware of piracy etc. He was getting out of the karaoke business and just wanted to move them.

I was very specific with my questions and he answered each one like he knew what he was talking about. This was an ebay purchase so I paid through an paypal account. Couple more correspondences with this guy and the discs arrive. Excited as hell I rip open the box and start looking through each one. Initially, I scan through and the discs look genuine and I start looking for specific discs, etc. I get to the first DK disc and I noticed something. The label that was on the disc was faded considerably and I noticed that the ends were frayed and damaged. Further investigation revealed my worst fears.

Either this guy tried to scam me with fake labels on burnt discs or he got scammed when he bought them originally. Regardless, I call the guy and tell him that these are NOT original manu discs and that I would like my money back. He goes postal and starts screaming at me that these are indeed original discs and he would never consider refunding me my money. We argue a few more minutes and the guy slams the phone in my face and swears to god that he will not give me a dime.

After our conversation I notify ebay of our situation and they apologize but it is out their hands. They advise me to contact PAYPAL, which i did. Paypal was very helpful and assigned me a case number and assured me that I would be contacted that same day.

Well, not only was I called within 15 minutes but I was also assigned a "mediator" from Paypal who listened to my concerns and advised me to send her 5 of the discs that were supposedly "fakes" and she would evaluate them and get back with me.

Fast forward about a week later and the young lady from Paypal calls me and tells me that the mediation had ended and that the discs were indeed fraudulent. My paypal account was immediately reimbursed the amount I paid for the discs and the idiot's account was also depleted the same amount.

The best part is yet to come....... The mediator told me that the discs I had left from the transaction were to be destroyed immediately. She said that I could do this myself or send them to her office and she would take care of it. I assured her I would destroy them and send her video evidence to prove it. It turns out that she would need video evidence anyways so here's what we did.

The wife gets out the video camera and I get a mallet and a hammer. We take all the discs and put them on the living room floor. For the next twenty minutes I am smashing and breaking each disc pausing only for a moment or two to smile into the camera. When I'm sure the job is complete we take out the memory stick from the video camera and load it into the computer.

Needless to say it was AWESOME!! To put icing on the cake guess who calls me a few days later demanding I send his discs back to him. I, of course, refuse and tell him they were destroyed. He says I'm lying and my wife and I just start laughing uncontrollably.

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Sound Choice and Chartbuster Certified

did you share the video on youtube ? I would like to see that

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

if it was in my local area and I didn't recognize the seller as a host, I probably would not have said anything.....

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It's all good!

Reread the OP... As a footnote, nothing was mentioned about putting them up for sale immediately in Joe's "What Would You Do?" scenario... just the fact that Nothing was stated in Joe's post about whether the Seller volunteered the info that he would destroy the ripped versions or not. The only thing stated was what would YOU assume, and what would you say (or not say).

I would have sent him the destroyed discs back or the video of you destroying them.

What Topher would do! Pretty mention that it's not legal & then buy them!

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

Just so you don't think I'm holding out: I'd buy the discs. At my age I'm tired of trying to educate people who are stupid enough to start a business without learning it first. It's their a$$. As long as I am buying factory original discs, it's their problem, not mine. I now own the originals and am clear of any liability. The seller? Not my responsibility. It's a business.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I would buy them. I am not qualified to be an IP policeman and I'll never even try to put that hat on.

I didn't know the answer to this question until I remembered I saw some Custom Burn Discs locally on Ebay. . .

I looked at the track listings and saw that one or two were very very obscure choices and could also be found in the book of a huge company that shouts how legal it is.

I brought them (and got a receipt), it turned out the person selling them was a host of theirs: so now in my area there are two shows with the same songs (since they never removed them from their books) but only one of us has the original disc.

I can't properly explain why I did it, I didn't need the discs even at £2 each. I think it was a the time just to prove that biggest doesn't mean best.

On a side note . . . . in 6 years the very very obscure songs have never been sung.

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'A genius is one who can do anything except make a living'. Joey Adams.

ooo... that sounds like either the eleven disc CB or the 7 disc ASK I saw there....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I would refer them to the internet to show I wasn't just giving them bull and not buy them. Probably because I would be haunted afterwards and not be able to enjoy the purchase. I wouldn't care if someone else snapped them up anyway. I just worry about living with me. And if they were that important a purchase I would try to find them elsewhere.

To answer the original post, I would inform the person of the way things are now, and the possibility of opening themselves up to lawsuits etc and if they still wanted to go ahead with the sale, I would buy them.

There are things that I believe a person has a MORAL obligation to disclose, no matter how it might affect their business.

just my two cents

-James

I would do the same as you.

Buy the discs.
Inform the seller of her mistake.
Offer to sell the discs back at a tidy profit.

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KNOW THYSELF

Se, now there's abusiness mind in action....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."