Karaoke Forums

....is the renewed malice against Sound Choice because of the KKS lawsuit. The anti-Sound Choice contingent has a minor (hardly devastating) victory on their hands and they think they have won. Then they come to the various forums and spew their crap all over again.

....are the pirates who have no fear of saying that is exactly what they are because they know that Sound Choice won't be coming after them (the consumers who pirate).

....the people who claim to be supporting the industry doing everything they can to destroy it and practically encouraging everyone else to do the same.

....that so few people are pissed off about the above.

-Chris

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-Chris

Chris, I think that SC has dropped the ball a number of times, and people are just sick of the whole thing. You get war weary after a while. Those that have SC discs, like me, want to shift the music WE BOUGHT, without having to deal with audits and all that crap. Other mfrs let us do it without issue, we want the same treatment from SC. We want the KJ hunting to stop. I am sure the Pro-SC contingent are getting tired of the whole thing, too, except Insane. For some reason he lives and dies by these SC lawsuits.

You have KJs here who have reported their local pirates to no avail. Years afterward those same pirates are still in business. They already have stated that they can't keep up with the pirates with their current litigation model, so what is the point? There has been a 10% increase in piracy since the litigation model was implemented. The problem isn't going to go away.

Now we find out that SC has lost a few big cases. That means that anyone with the money to fight them can win. So, now SC has a decision to make. Either continue going after the little guys, and try to force them to by GEMS, keep going after the big guys and losing, or quit. I am quite sure the pirates want them to quit. Well, some of us NON-pirates would like to see them quit, too, just because we don't want the bother or the expense.

The other day Harrington accused me of submitting to SC rule, by playing my SC from disc. He was wrong in that accusation. I play my SC from disc ONLY because I refuse to get an audit. What I have in my collection is not their business. I bought it and paid for it once. I will NOT pay again to use it as I see fit. Not when other manufactures are willing to let me shift without the nonsense. So, instead, since I do not have a very big SC collection, I will just work towards replacing the necessary songs from those discs, and keep them for home only use, or private party use. Then I can shift them and SC can't do a thing about it.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I feel the same war weariness you speak of. You could essentially cut and paste your comments to my OP as more reasons of what bugs me.

It is the absolute negativity about Sound Choice by the other side that is the primary factor though. It doesn't even impact many of the people that complain about it. They are taking a stand against something that they play no part in. And Why? Because they are trying to protect the innocent from the tyranny of Sound Choice? It makes no sense to me for people to take a stand on something if they aren't going to actively do something about it. They should stop stomping their feet and actually do something about if they think they are so right. Put their money where their mouths are. Otherwise it is just a bunch of hot air.

-Chris

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-Chris

I think you need a reality check Chris, it wasn't a minor defeat, as Jimbo and others have tried to spin. SC was hoping for a big pay day from the Kandy Store and they didn't get it. SC ended up paying all the legal costs for theirs and the defendants. Also the decision was completely against SC, the judge and the advisory jury, what if that had been a real jury trial? Not to mention it set a legal precedent as what constitutes infringement, which can be applied to any karaoke service business, or venue. It's crap to you because you don't want to hear that all of this legal process has been one big scam. It has been played on everyone in the industry, and now it is being exposed for what it really is.

Come on Chris you know and I know the major amount of the theft has occurred at home and not in the hosting end of the business. There are less than 50,000 hosts nation wide while there are millions of home users, that didn't pay for their music either. The manus can't go after them it would be a legal, and PR nightmare, not to mention a violation of some bill of rights issues. That is why the host out in public is their target, he is the vulnerable one, and of course the deep pockets the venues he or she works for. Out of all the millions of abusers the host must bear the total weight of the collective crimes against the manus. It is the hosts and the venues who by using the manus product do show the logos and keep the product in the public mind, free advertising. That would be valuable if the manus were still primarily in the production end of the business where they belong, not playing cops and robbers, which frankly they are not very good at.

I think a host can support the industry and not be pro SC or PR. It depends on whose vision of the industry you really want. Sort of like being a Conservative or a Liberal, both support the country and the constitution, but have different ideas about where the country is going to go. When I started in this business nearly 20 years ago things were quite different, and have changed greatly. I'm sure they will change even more. During that whole period I managed to run a successful karaoke service business. The pirates were never a problem, in fact I had more trouble with legal hosts that wanted to limit competition, so they could keep their rates high. Most of them are gone now, but I see some still want to limit competition, they think it will help their bottom line and improve the hosting quality. It didn't work in the past and it won't work now, some hosts don't belong in the business because quite frankly they are not very good. That is why so many jump in and then jump out, that is why if you go on ebay so much hosting equipment is for sale. If the hosting industry is destroyed it is not the pirates that will do it, it will be the manus with this silly legal process of theirs. That and the fact their are no standards for being a host, that anyone can become one, and that is why there is so many hacks in the business. These hacks both legal and illegal also kill karaoke, since after they are done, the venues don't want to take a chance on another karaoke show.

Why should people be pissed off about the truth Chris? It becomes more plain everyday that the active legal process manus all two of them are what they are. Large companies trying to improve their bottom line at the expense of hosts both legal and illegal. That is their target market, the massive home loses are water over the dam that is not coming back. They are running a legal scam to compel hosts to submit and pay up or else. The or else is a legal suit. These legal suits are not founded on firm legal ground, and when they are challenged in court SC loses. Most of the manus legal victories have come in the form of out of court settlements, that they squeezed out of the individual hosts that could not afford to fight back. You talk about being pissed off, I think the hosts that were pressured into these settlements should be pissed off. Most likely they signed away their legal rights to sue SC at some later date, and now they are out money they didn't have to pay, with no legal recourse to recover their losses.

I think it is sad that people would rejoice in believing that there is no way a karaoke manufacturer can protect their product from theft. It shows a general lack of character as well as ignorance as to the effect on the industry as a whole. But I don't see much point in wasting time or emotion on these people.

As you have a direct line, Chris, you know there is more going on than what is being let out. In order to defend or advance your position you would have to let on about some of it. I see no reason to give any thieves advance notice of anything. Already we see hosts hiding their booths and removing songs and doing other things to make it more difficult to catch them. At one point the only fair thing seemed to be to educate and give warning. But that has only resulted in more disdain so I say just swallow all of this stuff being put out. Let them dig their holes deeper and deeper. Let them go crazy trying to bait people hoping to gain more information.

If someone shows an interest in doing the right thing then by all means guide them in the correct direction. But anything else appears to be a waste of life.

i get it Chris, but we all have been asking for a long time that they just put effort into catching the sellers like Stellar has instead of the hosts. buy a drive with infringing content and no discs and it should be rather simple but it did not get done right. time spent hunting after hosts and getting some small judgements, but sellers are everywhere and thriving, singers everywhere keeping the sellers in business (not the hosts doing it) but here we are watching the ones actually copying and selling SC content on drive after drive going about their business while we must pay to use one singular copy of discs we bought.


and they are everywhere. how many of your own patrons have told you about their collection 10x larger than yours? if we look for thieves, no need to go anywhere other than the Showcase right here. a majority of the people in that room have more than any of the hosts here. i agree it is crappy, but they know they wont be touched.


if SC goes out of business it is not the end of the karaoke industry. i do not agree with you here.


we are, but if SC wont do anything about it, why should we?

-Chris[/quote]

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

So everyone should bow down to SC and PR?? Is that the RIGHT thing to do?? Everyone should submit to the audits, and buy the GEMS, and subscribe to the clouds?? When does it end?? I KNOW I'm not a pirate. I don't have to prove myself to ANYONE!!! The ONLY person I would ever "prove" myself to would be a venue owner. But that is the ONLY one. The venue owner would be paying me. SC just wants more money.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

SC has sued a lot more sellers than Stellar has.

ok, who?

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

KKS, Mark Mann, and Beverly Glass, to name three. There are others that I can't talk about.

Keep after these dirtbags as I have said before cut off the head of the snake.......
It is sad that these hard drive sellers are so out in the open and that their numbers seem to just keep growing.

Chris, I too am war weary ( and if you notice I'm posting less- though just as vehemently- on the subject), but I feel that the following part of your post describes me fairly well:

"It is the absolute negativity about Sound Choice by the other side that is the primary factor though. It doesn't even impact many of the people that complain about it. They are taking a stand against something that they play no part in. And Why?"

I'm not only Original Manufacturers' Dic based, but am that way by preference. I have absolutely no desire to shift to PC. That being said, for the most part I have no real stake in what SC does or doesn't do.

So WHY?

First, I am 57 years old. I was brought up by fun-loving parents who also had conservative values ( born in 1914 and 1925) which they passed on to me. Also, I have been (and still am) Eastern-trained ( by that I mean trained by people born into those cultures) in several martial arts since I was 10, where honor and ethics play an extremely important role.

It is my personal belief that SC has been operating in an extremely unethical manner. I have been taught to stand up for my beliefs.

I initially got involved with these debates for that reason. Since that time the venue market has been affected by their actions, and at least one personal DISC-BASED friend and host was named in the suit filed in NJ that was eventually dropped. In my opinion, he was wronged by SC.

Things like that have kept me involved.

As for "stamping my feet", some time ago I mentioned on several forums that I HAVE contacted and asked for help from local politicians regarding piracy ( by that I mean people who actually STOLE music, not media shifters). I also asked for help from an acquaintance who worked at the NY office of the FBI back then. Nobody had the time, inclination, or manpower to be bothered with it in regard to individual KJs. It is simply the very lowest of priorities for them. I have always said that I wish there was a government-empowered enforcement agency that could be dedicated to the task.

The fact is, at this time there is absolutely no competant, professional, unbiased government agency to whom individual pirate ( track thief) KJ who don't distribute can be reported with any expectation that something will be done about it.

Leaving us the only possible defense: Make our shows the most popular, highest quality within out work radius.

In all fairness to SC, they stated outright that fighting piracy was NOT their goal, but rather recouping losses ( though the story seems to change on occasion from the original statement.). It was the KJs that decided to elevate them to pirate-killer status, feeling that they were going to do something other than what they ended up doing..

Yes, I'm war weary as well, Chris. However, from my point of view, SC has managed to create my reprieve by their own actions. KJs are have begun to educate themselves on the issue, or have had their eyes opened by simply following the proceedings. The courts are showing that they aren't any too pleased with SC in regard to cases actually argued before them (not default settlements). I'm getting more and more rest from it nowadays.

I feel exactly what you feel Chris, it's only some small parts of our perceptions that differ- and some are starting to become the same.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I find it sadly ironic that you complain about SC's ethics based upon objectively false information, yet you continue to push that false information despite being corrected on it numerous times.

If I were going to set myself up as a paragon of virtue, qualified to opine on the ethics of others, I would at least try to get my facts straight.

You mean you are not a paragon of virtue Jim? It's hard to get the facts straight especially when only a few are privy to all the facts. The mini summit they had in Las Vegas during the convention wasn't streamed, I love the way the manus say everyone is ignorant, and then they do everything they can to withhold information.

The mini-summit in Vegas was open to any person attending the convention. It wasn't secret (see the ad banners at the top of the KS forums?). It wasn't private (attend the conference, you could attend the meeting).

-Chris

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-Chris

We don't all work for Microsoft. We can't all just take a breezer to Vegas for a convention.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Maybe you should charge more for your shows so you can invest in your business in order to go to certain trade conventions.

However, is the karaoke market share in your area saturated with $25 or $50 a show KJ's making it difficult to get a $200 rate?

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-- Mark

Where I work has no bearing on this discussion. I have a budget and make spending decisions just like everyone else.

Also, if you are running your karaoke business properly, the cost of the convention pass the other associated expenses (airfare or mileage, hotel, food) are all tax-deductible within the realm of business expenses. You still have to have the money to pay for it up front, but you are going to get a chunk of it back.

By the way, I did not attend the conference this year.

-Chris

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-Chris

I guess then Chris you are also ignorant of what happened there like the majority of hosts.

I have no interest in going to conventions, unless it were to come to Tampa. I don't fly, and I don't take long trips. I never have been the traveling type.

My area isn't saturated in any way. The same group of hosts has been around here for YEARS. I am actually the first "new guy" to come around in a while.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE