Karaoke Forums

Karaoke Croaker, still looking for your answers to these questions. As an expert in the legal field, you should be able rather easily to explain yourself.

OK, let's take these one at a time.



In my experience, which is extensive, while the singers choose which song to sing, the KJ chooses which version to play unless the singer expresses a preference (which is relatively rare).



Wait, you're saying it's technologically impossible to remove the logos from the tracks?

(It's not.)

The term "embedded" generally refers to situations in which the trademarked element cannot be removed from the content without destroying the content. The classic example is the Zuffa case out of Nevada, where UFC sued a streaming pirate based on infringement of the UFC's trademark "Octagon" ring, which is the physical place where UFC competitions occur. The court said that the trademark was "embedded" in the content because you can't remove the ring from a fight. But the technology exists today to insert or remove trademarked items in films or TV shows, to facilitate "product placement" advertising. It happens all the time.

It's not even technologically difficult to remove logo graphics from a karaoke track.



Sure, that's one form of promotion. It's not the only form. In particular, merely having a show, especially with a screen that displays the visual portion of the tracks, is promotion of that show.



Sure it is. It's often used in the books and online catalogs. It's used in the computer. It's used in photos that are posted to social media. (You'd be surprised how often that happens.) Our trademarks are frequently used outside the context of the tracks being played.



How about the recent opinion in the Jorgensen case that expressly upheld our right to sue for infringement of the service mark? That case is in Illinois, and it expressly found that Rumsey--binding precedent in the Seventh Circuit, which covers Illinois--did not preclude us from suing for service mark infringement.

Or Aguayo in the Middle District of Florida, rejecting Rumsey entirely?

Or Golf 600 in the Southern District of New York, granting us summary judgment on trademark and service mark claims?

Some folks on this board, who have definitively moved into the "pro-pirate" column, would have you believe that we're out on a legal limb with these claims. The actual facts say otherwise. The courts have been mixed on these questions, to be sure, but that's the point--the courts are mixed, not one-sided in favor of the pirates we sue.

So is that the way it is Jim if we are not for you then everybody is pro-pirate? Could it be that more and more people don't like the way you are conducting business, and are choosing not to deal with you? The actual facts are that you have lost more cases than you have won. That some judges have gone out on a limb and said that your suits are frivolous and without merit, judge Wright in California for one. What about the Vegas suits, and all of the suits filed by CB prior to you taking over their trademark? Just because you say someone is a pirate doesn't make them one. Just because thinking individuals question your legal process, doesn't mean they are pirate supporters. You are using too broad a brush to try and paint everyone.

When you actively root for people who outright pirates to win lawsuits so that they can go on pirating, you are objectively pro-pirate.

Sorry if the truth hurts.

did you forget that sometimes no logos are displayed at all there is a little intro and bang it goes right into the song?

If you were winning law suits on a regular basis; there wouldn't be a 90% saturation level of pirate karaoke hosts. They would be afraid to get into the karaoke business if you were any kind of serious threat to them. They laugh at the man hiding behind the curtain because he has no teeth.

You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and bit you in the back side, your a lawyer. You are right up there with Congress, and the News Media. Who's rooting? You are not winning this fight against pirates, unless you mean winning the way Charlie Sheen means winning. Your plan is to sue venues which will have a negative effect on all hosts, when these venues decide karaoke is too much of a risk and just stop having it at all.

There is so much piracy in the digital age .. software, music, pictures, fonts, and yes karaoke tracks. I do understand the frustration of Sound Choice et al.

However I don't think the 'confusion in the marketplace' approach will yield anything more than additional frustration. But who knows, Judges are the gods of the courtroom.

when a pirate moves into a new area and takes over a bunch of shows from legitimate KJs; Sound Choice or PEP does nothing to put the new KJ out of business to help the legal KJs. All Pep does is try to bully the pirate into buying some sort of license that allows the pirate to unfairly compete against the legal KJs in the area. And Jim wonders why legal KJs don't always have his back???

Putting the blame on SC/PEP for not going after pirates that steal your gigs is just a way to shift attention away from the KJ that doesn't know how to keep their own gigs. Those pirates, if they were legal, would still steal your gigs because that is the kind of people they are. Who is to blame in that scenario? Their parents? Are you going to demonize them?

Be accountable to yourself and figure out how to compete regardless of who the competition is.

_________________
-Chris

My parents aren't trying to make it look like they are trying to end piracy. Jim isn't trying to stop piracy at all. He is trying to make a buck from it and doesn't give a crap about the legal KJs out there so why should they care about him? Jim allows the pirates to buy their legality for pennies on the dollar compared with what truly legal Kjs had to pay to have the same status.

Of course, the difference is: a pirate doesn't burn the bar down on their way out the door if they lose their job to a legitimate operator that actually has talent. PEP simply makes the entire form of entertainment – not just the entertainer – distasteful or unusable to venues.

So the pirate isn't actually making the industry any smaller, but quite the opposite: they make the industry bigger and better for talented legitimate operators because it increases the demand for their (better) services. Ask any KJ, who works on a Tuesday night and had a different bar ask them to replace their current (talent-less) KJ. It really has nothing to do with the library, brand of songs, the number of songs or even whether or not the KJ is a pirate. It has everything to do with the host and their skills as an entertainer.

PEP's idea is to sue the venues into either paying them a monthly sum, or discontinuing the form of entertainment entirely from every single KJ in the vicinity: including you.

PEP's new target is venues... not KJ's.

In areas where we are actively pursuing litigation, a HELP license costs either $360 or $420 per month, depending on other factors. We will sometimes discount that rate slightly for multi-system operators.

At the high end, that's $5,040 per year, per system, to become a licensee. That kind of investment would allow you to buy about 200 SC discs a year, maybe more if you were careful--which is well within the range of most of the KJs who have bought our discs, even in one year.

It's true that many long-term operators have put multiples of that figure into their systems, even just considering the SC material. But the operator who has invested an amount to make $5k "pennies on the dollar" is truly rare.

About 4 months ago, we significantly raised the price of the HELP license and implemented a tiered pricing structure that takes into account our enforcement activities, the economic conditions in an area, and the number of licensees we have in an area. We did so even though we knew it would slow the pace of licensing and ultimately reduce our licensing revenue growth. We did it for a number of reasons, but one of those reasons was to make it more costly to "get legal," so as to be fair to those operators who purchased discs and who took licenses without being forced.

I have never pretended that this project isn't about money. It is about money. It always has been. We made a thing that is highly valued by this industry. Rather than paying for it, most people simply stole it, because they could. I am not on a crusade to rid the world of piracy on moral grounds. I am in this to recover the value of what was stolen from my employer. If, along the way, I can help and reward the people who have been on our side, I will do that. For example, we routinely decline to license pirate operators who steal gigs from our licensees or who violate reasonable non-compete agreements. We believe it is in our long-term best interest to stand by our licensees. We spend a lot of time and money developing tools to help licensees promote their karaoke businesses. Through our operations subsidiary, Sound Choice Entertainment, we're starting a pilot promotion project in several markets next month that will include a dedicated website, several online tools for operators to use in their operations, and a social media promotion consortium, with hopes that we can expand it nationwide.

When you say that I am "trying to make a buck from it and doesn't give a crap about the legal KJs out there," that is simply a lie. There's no other word to put to it. Is what we're doing enough? No. It never is, because we have only the resources we have. But we do what we can. I'm sorry that we haven't been able to do more, but we're trying--and if you look at the landscape out there, we're pretty much the only ones who are.

You claim to be anti-piracy--or maybe you don't, I don't really care--but you've yet to miss an opportunity to criticize our efforts to get people to pay for what they're using. You make reckless and false statements about our efforts, our cases, and our motives. At some point, a point you have long since passed, your efforts can no longer be characterized as simply criticizing our methods. You have long since crossed the line into supporting the people who steal from us. Even if you aren't one of the people who steal--and maybe you are...I don't know who you are or where you operate--you clearly condone and endorse the stealing, because you criticize any effort to stop it from occurring.

That is what makes you, objectively speaking, pro-pirate.

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, and you are entitled to express it here to whatever extent the pirate-friendly administration of this board allows. But you should at least be honest about what your words have made so very clear: Your preference is for us to go away to clear the decks entirely for piracy.

Ten pages..

jd,,, is that your prediction how many pages this is going to become before someone says something irritating enough to lock it down yet another thread ?

"
..to be fair to those operators who purchased discs and who took licenses without being forced?"
This is as bad as coming up with new reasons to sue people... Harrington changes his story as fast as he can dance because what he really said "about 4 months ago" was...

Yeah, it's "all about money" alright. So I wonder if he was lying when he said it was about "being fair to operators" or when he said he wanted to "optimize our ability to earn revenue from licenses". And if you really think that PEP gives sh*t about KJ's or pirates, helping you or stopping piracy, then you need your head examined.

Or maybe he was lying when he said that "we knew it would slow the pace of licensing and ultimately reduce our licensing revenue growth." or was he lying when he said that he wanted to "optimize our ability to earn revenue from licenses."

He can't have it both ways... one way or another he's apparently lying faster than even he can remember.

I'm not pro-pirate but I am anti-douche bag. You make people pay to media shift products that they own under the threat of being sued. That's douchy. Chip owns plenty of Sound Choice discs and he doesn't use them because of your douchiness.

Another example of douchy behavior: Sound Choice produced 15 Tom Petty songs. Instead of putting them all on a Spotlight disc or 2 Star Series discs they put each song on a separate disc so if you wanted those 15 songs you had to buy 15 discs at $30 per disc for a grand total of $450 for 15 songs. When you basically charge people $30 for one song; people can understand why those same people try to get even with you at some point. They felt that you were ripping them off for years so they did you one better. They beat you at your own game and now you're crying the blues because they were better thieves than you were. I've been to shows that have every single Sound Choice track and there isn't a logo to be seen on any of them. You are right. The technology is out there to easily remove the logos from any karaoke track. The karaoke companies that are in business today allow people to buy the tracks that they want without having to buy filler tracks as well. You can buy 30 tracks that you really want for $90 instead of $450.

incorrect....
not one person here criticizes you for getting pirates to pay for what they use.
all of the criticism is because most of your efforts end up going against hosts who already paid for what they are suing.
if you were getting the pirates to pay for what they used and not taken any more money from the legit hosts, there would not be this criticism.

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

I second Paradigm....

The person who I know that got sued had 500+ Original Sound Choice CDs. They used to tell people where to go to buy CDs (we would drive out together and marvel at all the new releases together), and never exchanged hard drives with anyone (because they liked their unique and legal collection). Yep huge pirate there.

I just think the host was an easy target, as they had a very popular show. Many of the actual pirates (that were reported by me and others) around them in the same area have yet to be bothered.

Too many people here have been vocal about pirates without success. How did PEP respond, by offering them a free pass with a HELP licence IF they got caught.

You said it yourself, PEP can't be everywhere. But it seems when PEP IS there, it hurts more then HELPs legitimate KJs