Karaoke Forums

I personally feel that I am not the "karaoke police" and I have no right to question where their music came from. Our jobs are full enough of drama without adding policing to it.

I have parties at my home all the time and one of the first things I like to do is take a new guest into my guest room and show them my rather sizable collection (about 7000 cd's) of legally acquired music. I like being able to clear the "legal air".

I too used to create my own custom discs and thumb drives for use at other shows, and I have never been questioned about their origin. The pirate stigma just doesn't seem to bother most people and it is probably shedding some bad light on you for even mentioning it.

Herein lies the issue.

Most people I speak to these days, regardless of age group, pretty much believe that if they can find it on the Internet, it must be free and fair to use by anyone, under any circumstances.

I chalk some of it up to ignorance, some of it up to clever positioning by pirates, some of it up to the IP holders themselves, and a fair portion of it up to world governments for not getting ahead of the game.

I no longer report karaoke piracy to the IP holders, but I do take local folks to task for it when I see blatant cases of it.

_________________
-Chris

Yup. With no real policing, people take advantage. How many people would obey the speed limit if there were no police? Even my elderly mother would be speeding.

Only too true! Having broadened my business into more venues the last couple years, and making a lot of new customers, I'm encountering at least one person a night who believes this is how it works. It always comes up when answering why I don't have a song they know they've seen or sung at someone else's show. Most are thunderstruck when they realize I pay for my music -- it just never occurred to them.

They look at me funny when I say a song is out of print, just most of the CB collection.They say, "Well so and so has it", so I tell them that either he got it before CB was gone or he got it for free from some illegal download site, since no legal dl sites have that version of that song.

_________________
I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

hosts here have been mad for years about the SC "all hosts are guilty thieves who don't pay for their music" mentality, so for me to do exactly that to someone would be wrong in my eyes. if they bring in a thumb drive, who am i to say "no i wont play your drive full of stolen music" when for all i know he has the handful of discs the 50 songs came on. (Cuballs 150 is much larger than any drive i have been handed so far) I’m not going to accuse them of stealing it just because it is not on the original disc. most of the songs on those drives end up not being SC anyway. the most i have encountered personally is about 10 on one drive. that is max of 10 discs, not unreasonable (i had more than that before i started hosting) and the rest are from SBI, ZM, KV who sell downloads and if they bought it online...how would i know?

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

You would know because Kurt Slep and Jim Harrington have TOLD you that 95% of EVERYONE who is involved in Karaoke is a pirate!! MY GOD!! What is it going to take to get you to acknowledge that?? Look, I am TIRED of this "everyone is guilty until proven innocent" crap!! That is not the way to treat people.

_________________
I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Just for clarification. That's about 150 songs, not discs on my flash drive. It is copied from the 12 personal discs that I also bring with me (so I have my personal selection on two different media).

Exactly! And how would you know that they didn't actually own the original discs but didn't bring those with them either (thus the copies). One should not assume the worst in a person (as Chris just said he would).

Just to be accurate, we've told you that 95% of those who use SC-branded tracks from hard drives are pirates, not 95% of everyone. When you include those who don't use SC, those who use it only from discs, and those who do have 1:1 correspondence, the number drops to about 90% overall.

We feel comfortable in making that statement because fewer than 1 in 20 of the people we sue ask for the audit that would prove they have 1:1 correspondence and are not pirates--even when we've offered it for free. We make that offer to everyone we sue.

I'll remind you that even you were willing to pirate SC content until you were made aware that it was illegal to do so. I think it showed a lot of character, once you were made aware of the legalities, that you chose to follow the law. That's all we're asking of people. But a lot of folks don't care, and a lot of others don't know--some because they don't know enough to ask or research, and some because they are intentionally avoiding the question.

Most of the people we sue aren't bad people. A lot of them just don't know about the law, or they have faulty assumptions about things. Most of them, if they thought about it, would realize that piracy is wrong. Most of them, when they get caught and sued, are ready to acknowledge the problem, but they lack the easy means to make it right, so they try to avoid consequences.

As a functional matter, we've tried, through these lawsuits, to make it as easy as we can to allow people to deal with the past infringement and avoid it in the future. But our rhetoric hasn't always matched our intentions in that regard. I think Kurt can be forgiven for being angry at people who have deprived him of the fruits of three decades of hard work. But dehumanizing the people behind piracy makes our job harder than it has to be.

Mr. Harrington:

Is it possible, as suggested, to make it a priority of going after the pirates from the leads that we turn in before anything else?

It is very frustrating when most of us have submitted leads years ago and they've never been followed up upon. And these same pirates are still out there today. It would benefit us all if the leads we submit were addressed in a timely fashion.

Thank you for your consideration and understanding.

_________________
Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Customer disks, and USB thumb drives, no way jose..

Might have nastiness on them... and the customer might not know..

Plus, it's just not good business..

i don't know JD....
nastiness, not a problem if you turn off autoplay and your player wont even open it if it is not the type of file it says it is (keeping nasties away) plus NOT playing someone’s paid for music (innocent till proven guilty) would seem to be not good business.
how could playing Cuballs files on his drive NOT be good business?

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

Perhaps..

Autoplay Off? Sure.

I've seen carp embedded inside a video. Nasty stuff is everywhere..

I prefer to be safe than sorry..

We practice safe Karaoke around here

_________________
I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

So how about a downloadable pdf package a KJ could show local lawyers from Phoenix to help Phoenix recruit lawyers who would be willing to work on contingency along with a training package to walk the lawyer through how Phoenix would want things handled?

That would be fine if PEP wanted to share the spoils with the KJs that helped. They aren't interested in doing that. Getting rid of the pirates does NOT guarantee higher rates, at this point, for KJs. Many areas STILL have flat economies. So, I think KJs who rat out the pirates should get some sort of spoils after PEP makes money from the lawsuits.

_________________
I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Very disturbing mental image there. I agree it WOULD be nasty! 8>)

what kind of places are you doing where your singers are that malicious ?

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

MY GOD!! Who would do that to a poor CARP???

_________________
I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

The spell checker must by fubar..


It's c r a p..