Karaoke Forums

It really isn't necessary to read any of this as long as you take the proper precautions in the first place. You have the options laid out by Jim to avoid legal trouble with SC.

1. You can be proactive and have your SC material audited get your certification and have it renewed on a yearly basis.

2. You can boycott the SC product if you are not using the product you have not stolen, no basis for any legal actions by SC.

3. You can get out of the business before you are sued.

There is of course always the 4th solution which is simply license the GEM series. If you are going to be in the business long enough to recoup the amount of the cost, it might be the best alternative. Despite what others say it is amnesty at a price with no audit needed. If the pirate is nervous about being sued it is cheap insurance. Once you have signed on and paid your money, SC will lose all interest in you and your business. According to Bazza there will be no micromanaging, and he has never had to submit to a SC audit of his licensed material. So you see all you have to do is pay off SC and there will be no problems, and no need to read court documents.

If someone has done all that is stated in this thread, there is absolutely NOTHING anyone can legally do to help him and the advise on that blog will be useless to him or anyone like him. And I, for one, am glad because these are the type that need to be strung up. That does not mean the advise on the blog would not prove to be valuable to someone that is caught up in a broad net and hasn't done anything wrong and needs a way to get out. Judges aren't stupid, usually.

Normally, I would add that one could be ODB based and not worry about any of it, SC's current "investigational" (non-existent) record shows that even basing a show on Original Manufacturers' discs is no protection from a suit being filed against you- they keep throwin' it against the wall in hopes of stickage....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

My show, I am using less and less SC. I have 38 of their discs, I have one guy who sings off my Red Hot Chili Peppers disc, and that's about it. I have replaced some of my favorite SC songs with SBI, and Sunfly. My goal is to get away from SC altogether. That will lessen any worries I may have of using their product.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Sigh......state for us again the stats......

How many karaoke hosts are there in the US? (a crap load)
How many are computer based? (a crap load)
How many are disc based? (super duper small AND a dying breed....probably statistically ZERO new disc based hosts have started up in the last 5 years)
How many of those disc based KJ's have been sued? (less than 1%....even when we only count hosts that have been sued....if we counted every host running today, less than .01%)

Oh....and when was the last disc based host that was caught in the net by Sound Choice? A year ago?

It sucks that it ever happened. It sucks more that people pirate.

-Chris

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-Chris

Then sell me your discs. If they aren't discs I have already I will give you $10 each for them. If I already have them I will give you $5 each for them. You are looking at $150 to $380 bucks.

You know where to find me.....

-Chris

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-Chris

Nah, I will save them for private parties and home use. At least for home use I can put them on my computer and nobody will bother me about it.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I'm glad that jukebox hosts are even fewer than disc based KJ's they seem to be left out of every conversation, about as close to the ground as you can get, and still be in the business. I guess it is one of the best kept secrets in karaoke hosting. Not one of them has ever been named even by mistake. That is about as close as you are going to get to a perfect record.

If by Jukebox hosts, you mean CAVS players, those are Computer based hosts. We have had that discussion already.

If by Jukebox hosts, you mean a real internet connected Jukebox, then yeah.....whale poop.

-Chris

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-Chris

Kind of funny...you are essentially telling him the value of his discs is based on whether you already have it or not...

Yes I am.....the value to ME is based on whether I have it or not. The value to him should be whatever he thinks he can get for it. We can meet somewhere in between.

-Chris

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-Chris

Yeah, no. You either pay what I want you to pay or you don't. There is NO middle. But I'm not selling them, anyway.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I was thinking more along the line of the U-Best 268 that is what I have been using for the last few years. Users maybe are computer based hosts although Bazza says they are not real computers. I don't think of them as being either old time disc based or PC somewhere in the middle, but that is just my opinion. Really I think they lean closer to the disc based model. All the computer hosts that have been sued are PC users. I have never heard of one of the jukebox hard drive hosts being sued, have you Chris?

I don't in any way believe staying ODB is the wave of the future. In fact if one wants to get new music one may soon have to be hybrid or get permission to burn from DTE. But I do feel I have a certain freedom to play whatever brand I want without fear of endangering the venue. The legal situation is far from being stable as far as shifting and with the possibility of the publishers getting involved. Also right now I taken a hit from the economy and day job situation so it is most economical for me to stay disc based.

But I do feel I need to point out that what Chris may experience in his area is not the world. In my area I am a disc based host that started out within the past 3 years. There are two other disc based hosts in the area with regular shows who have been at it for at least a decade each. From what I am seeing we may be a small percentage of the karaoke hosts in general but I'm betting that we are 100% of the legal hosts in our immediate area. So when coming up with statistics it would be nice not to be lumped in with the pirates to make us look insignificant.

There are also plenty of computer hosts who are still buying discs rather than downloads so that they have something to sell when they retire. I know many see the cloud and streaming as the future and not "owning" but most hosts still want to have control of their tools. In this volatile legal situation who knows when a karaoke company might suddenly be put out of business leaving the streaming based host without music? At least a host with discs in storage could still do a show. The disc may be dying but it isn't dead yet.

That is the exact mentality that rewards buyers at estate sales.

-Chris

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-Chris

U-Best 268 and CAVS are the same thing. They are special purpose computers. My computers lets me do a lot more is all.

I don't know if any of those sued have CAVS type units or not. If someone loads music to one without having the original discs then they are pirating the same as someone using a real computer.

-Chris

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-Chris

I'm not saying they couldn't be sued Chris, it is just that I don't know of one that has ever been sued in the four years of this legal process of the two manus. The PC hosts are the ones that have been sued since a laptop is easy to spot the jukebox player would look like just another player to the casual observer. When I asked Jim about it he said they could be sued, he never mentioned if one has ever been sued though.

" When I asked Jim about it he said they could be sued, he never mentioned if one has ever been sued though."

I know the answer to that...yes specialty computer users (Cavs/Ubest/other knockoffs) Have been sued(or at least been named/served with intent to sue letters). I know 2 personally. Both were duped into buying a preloaded unit with multiple written guarantees that they were legal. The company that sold the units was sued and is out of business. SC treated both host fairly. One left the business dropping all her equipment in our driveway with a note one night, the other went back to using his disc based system he owned prior to buying the CAVs units....I enjoyed taking a sledgehammer to that CAV's 199.

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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

Taking a sledgehammer to a $1600.00 machine how wasteful Athena, I thought you never wasted anything. Why didn't you put in storage with your other two CAV's 199's? You could always have taken out the tainted hard drive and had a blank put in and sold the machine and made some money. See I got my machines blank and hand loaded them myself, making sure no SC product was put in. I do have just about everything else though that I need for my shows. I fortunately don't know anyone that has been sued except for one person here in California over the 19 years I have been hosting. When SC found out he had no assets they dropped the whole matter. In 90 days it won't matter at least to me what happens then I will no longer be professionally hosting karaoke, I will leave it to everyone else to sort things out.

I enjoyed smashing it because I was angry with the whole situation...we had tried one of the units ourselves and had one we loaded sitting in storage, my personal opinion is they are not even good for boat anchors. the units sell used here with wiped drives for around $200 max. I really ENJOYED smashing that unit...pouring out all that negative emotion, angry at the company that LIED to my friend...stole her hard earned money and getting her in hot water.

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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