Karaoke Forums

So the reality is these suits are having little impact, except to try and earn a few bucks for a bogus company that no longer really makes anything. Anyone or company can sue anyone in this great land of ours, whether those suits have merit is for the court to decide. You like facts the fact is in the 9th Federal District PEP has not made it's case. The reality is here in California Jim and PEP are no real problem to hosts or venues currently. I'm not the one with a reality fantasy problem you and PEP and Jim are. PEP's fantasy is that they will get all of the venues and hosts in bed with them, they are all going to be partners. Of course this is just a fantasy and it is not happening in the real world.

And what conclusion do you think the people of this forum would have come to if TLR had answered instead? Let's review the question...


I would say, it's safe to say, I'm not the only person here who reads other topic threads that have nothing to do with SC. I also believe it is safe to say, that others here have done likewise (yourself included). You did not ask a question that required any special knowledge or expertise which would contribute to this forum in a positive manner. I'm sure there are many here who have seen both TLR and Chip participate in other topic threads which had nothing to do with SC, and they never brought it up. So, what conclusions were you looking for?... don't bother answering that... it's a RHETORICAL QUESTION.

And, as for "inciting further fighting/bickering/flaming," that's your choice to keep the fires burning. Go ahead and redirect and deflect everything to me. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

HELLO KETTLE....

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-Chris

It's fine with me that PEP tries to maintain the standards for its Sound Choice Line. If they want to sue pirates over it, go ahead! I've pointed a bunch of them out to PEP to get out of my area (with no luck).

My problem with PEP is the Chartbuster line. They bought it for 2 reasons: 1) so the '#2' brand didn't fall into freeware thus making it harder to sell their primary brand. and 2) The potential to sue people for trademark or service mark usage.

They aren't in it to save the Chartbuster label, Sound Choice was the "#1" brand (in their opinion) and anything else is a downgrade. If they were XYZ karaoke, then we could talk a brand recognition upgrade at the least.

They didn't acquire licensing from buying Chartbuster to put out new content, or they might have done that already. Sorry, public domain (freeware music) doesn't count as putting something out.

They aren't in it to save the Artists and Publishers. They bought the trade dress, that's it. They are not going to re-release the brand digitally or otherwise. They aren't sending check to EMI, Sony or anyone else for Chartbuster product.

If everyone has access to the material, no one has an advantage. If two KJs have the identical songbook, it comes down to the skill of the KJ to sell himself

It's not because it will set back the karaoke vendors. KV, SBI, Sunfly, Zoom, etc are all putting out old tracks as well as currents... KV does it DAILY. Besides. Besides, I believe the money is more in new release tracks. Old standards are going relatively cheap.

Their agreement not to sue doesn't include what the real music publishers want to do, if EMI, Sony or other big music business decided to bother a KJ, do you think PEP would stand in their way because you are "registered" with them, and have all "legal" products?

The only truth to buying the CB label is that PEP needed to save themselves from slaughter. The Chartbuster label had a huge catalog that would have become freeware. It's hard to compete when your product is 6+ years old and your trying to lease it out, while some stupid KJ who knows how to use the Internet could get all of that and more as freeware.

But PEP is registering people who have already paid for their CB product (read that line again, it's important) so they know pretty much "Who not to sue". If your not on the list, they can say they thought you were a pirate. You have to waste your time and money to prove it otherwise, so the small fee sounds great compared to legal hassles.

They can't put out a HELP Licence for CB because if they could, they would have introduced that already. I figure it's not just because they don't want to, but some legal reason that makes it very hard to do, if possible at all. I would think if they could charge the $250/rig/month price for a similar HELP style licence, that would pay the bills nicely.

It all comes down to lawsuits with PEP. They might start a new round of suits and add Chartbuster along side a Sound Choice suit, but they haven't figured out 100% how to make money with that new trade dress they own... yet.

So when it comes to CB, PEP isn't doing anything other then being a trademark/service mark/etc. troll.

exactly they want to collect on something they had no direct hand in making. PEP cannot claim that the product was stolen from them and demand compensation, they are not returning money to the original owners of the CB brand. This is just another step in their attempt to corner the market, but can't because there is still a ton of material out here other than SC or CB. In fact CB entered into so many things like SCDG's and hard drives, not to mention all of the CB product that was dumped on the market, by stores such as ACE karaoke, that it will be nearly impossible to really do more than threaten legal action.

just change the trade dress(easily done) and remove any logos (easily done) and use whatever tracks you want to.

I shouldn't have to anything of the sort. No one should.

Why should I spend hours removing logos on items I paid for in the first place? I don't go picking the labels off my clothing because a company might sue me for wearing them.

Why should I have to pay a fee to PEP so I don't get sued when I use a product that PEP had nothing to do with? It's like Pizza Hut trying to sue me for eating a pie from my local pizza shop.

It's true that you shouldn't have to, but Kurt Slep and Harrington make their living based on suing for technicalities, despite Harrington's constant preaching about "doing the right thing."

6 years ago, this forum was rife with "SC Cheerleaders" and there were a fair number of the "anti-SC'ers" as well. Take a look at the environment --- just in this forum --- today.

There are far more KJ's seriously scrutinizing PEP's real intentions since they seem to be failing at keeping their own promises and coming up with more and more excuses why they can't. The excuse that they're "waiting on publishers" is just another way for them to "move their own goalposts" farther and farther back. I don't see them setting the world on fire with any of their "new programs" or endeavors.

They spend more time defending their failing lawsuit strategies than apparently anything else. And I believe that suing for "service mark infringement" is just the last grab... at the last straw...

It's all they have left.

I can't deny that I was one of the cheerleaders back in the day, now my loyalty needs to be earned a little more.

I will also be honest in that I won't hold my breath over when product comes out, but I will give it a look over when/if they do. It really depends on them, if they release decent content in a timely fashion, and they don't make me go through hoops to own it, I might purchase from them. But without nothing released, there is nothing to talk about there.

Regardless of how much they win or lose in court these days, PEP has enough bank with people paying "dues" in one form or another to stick around for a while, but it's up to them to win all the poisoned people back, and right now, I don't think they are working on that.

Nobody should HAVE to but it might just be the easiest way to protect yourself from the ridiculous threat of law suits. If you have a song that gets sung quite often and it's only available from a law suit happy vendor; just "fix" it so it doesn't have anything remotely referring to a particular company. It's better than not being able to use it at all. There aren't that many songs out there that have NOT been made by more than one company. It only takes a few minutes to "fix" them so they are not breaking anyone's rules.

I do it so people won't find out how fat I really am, not getting sued for improper display is just a bonus.

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KNOW THYSELF

If you use the legit original product you purchased, you never have to pay us a dime.

What you're suggesting is that you should be able to buy a Ralph Lauren shirt, copy it down to the Polo logo, and sell the copies (OK, rent them out).

I doubt you'd make it very far in that line of business without drawing a lawsuit.

But because our product is electronic, everybody thinks they ought to be able to copy it however they'd like and use the copies to make money.

Compared to what RL would charge you to do that, if you even could, our nominal fees (which are just designed to cover the cost of checking for cheating) are very reasonable.

YOU think they are reasonable. Some of us don't. Not the SC fees. The CB fee is reasonable, but that is all.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Not quite... It's more like he's suggesting he should be able to buy a Ralph Lauren shirt, copy it down to the Polo Logo, and then wear that one so he doesn't ever have to wear the original one (thus keeping it protected from stains and tears and rips and fading colors from all the machine washes it would have been through).

If you are a really good seamstress and you can make an exact duplicate of your Ralph Lauren shirt on your Singer sewing Machine; it's very unlikely that anyone is ever going to know that the shirt you are wearing is an original or not. It's when you market millions of them through K-Mart that Ralph Lauren might start taking a look at what you're doing. A couple off Federal District Courts have already decided that media shifting is perfectly legal. People don't have to submit to any kind of audit to prove what they actually bought. Jim just wishes that was the case. Knock off Gucci bags are sold every day on plenty of corners in New York City.... and a few fake Rolex watches too... but Jim is gonna stop Karaoke piracy single handed. Good Luck with that!

Smooth the reason the CB fee is reasonable is because their ability to collect on that label is far weaker than SC. If they can collect anything on CB which is still to be upheld in court, is a big question mark? The reason they haven't been more aggressive in my opinion is they are hoping that anything they get will be better than trying to defend their claim in court. Other wise they should be just as quick to take you to court over the CB logo. It is just another way for them to make a buck. They are trying to create the illusion that they have the market cornered, actually The Emperor Has No Clothes.

Baloney! I don't believe that Toastedmuffin said anything about "selling" or even "renting" copies. This is an example of how you put words in someone's mouth and then admonish them for it. Which is nothing more than a childish game.
Except that you actually don't have "a product." You sold "the product" to someone else and retained only the trademark.

This is wrong on so many levels, it's just stupidly dishonest.

That's the only fake I have..

My daughter bought one for me when she visited New York city..

Thanks for saying that.

I don't sell, rent, give away or do anything other then what I've paid to use it for, which is to host karaoke shows in my neck of the woods.

I don't sell hard drives, I don't trade with my friends or go wherever it is that people go to download content (I don't know HOW, which is why I STILL have issues with those @#$%! Media Cloq CDs).

I know I keep having to say this to you, but I'm not a pirate.

Outside of karaoke: I own about 500 Blu Ray/DVD and now 4K Movies. I own over 2000 music CDs, plus a boat load of digital downloads from both iTunes and Amazon, and I have some 500+ books on the shelf (Including a complete set of 1st edition Anne Rice Hardcovers I'm very fond of), plus what I buy on my kindle. I own about 20 original production cells from various cartoons (Mostly WB and Animaniacs stuff). And no... I don't (knowingly) buy knock offs.

For the record, I will let you know what I used to do for a living: I bought and sold sports memorabilia, and mostly pre 80's items. Fakes kind of bother me... big time. I retired because the sports card industry went haywire with chase cards, and turned collecting into something akin to the playing the Dow Jones.

So what makes you think I would steal karaoke product???

I'm sorry to tell you, and I know it's reallyhard for the people at PEP to believe, but people like me actually ::gasp:: exist.

And since you missed the point of my post, I will say it again: That since I BOUGHT the items I am using, I should NOT have to 'peel labels' off Chartbuster tracks so I don't have to deal with a trademark troll shakedown.

Nothing was said about your primary product (SC), which I use in compliance with your company policy. I since have all the SC product I want there is nothing that I need to steal. And if I want more... there are plenty of CDs available on eBay.

So keep thinking everyone against PEP is a pirate, it only shows that PEP is an ignorant, paranoid corporation that will eventually shoot its proverbial foot enough that it either changes for the better, or goes away.

Sorry about the rant everyone, but I'm just tired of dealing with a person who's go to answer is that because I don't agree with their company, I must be someone who's a pirate.

Look, I understand what you're saying. You don't think of what you do as selling the product. And that's part of the disconnect between us.

I'm not saying that you are selling burns or hard drives or that you didn't buy a copy of everything you have.

But when you say to a venue, "Pay me some money and I'll come to your venue and let your patrons benefit from my purchases," you are engaged in a commercial transaction that involves whatever it is that you play.

When you do that with original discs, that's great and fine, and I agree you can do that without accounting to us in the slightest.

When you make copies, however, even if you're scrupulously 1:1, that changes things.

When you bought your discs, one of the rules was, no copying for commercial use. You don't like that rule, and it's fine that you want to do something else, but you need to get us to clear that.

Please understand that we're totally OK with you using the copies as long as you let us verify that you do actually own and possess the discs. The verification costs us time and money, and since you're the one who wants to change the rules, you need to be the one to pay for it.




I'm sure that's true, except, do you know who also says "I'm not a pirate"?

Pirates.

So we verify compliance. It's nothing personal. It's not that I'm unwilling to believe you. It's that I require proof. I'm sorry that's offensive to you, but it's not you. It's the many other people who say exactly what you say, who are actually lying.



That's not it.

It's not "Toastedmuffin must be a pirate."

It's "If Toastedmuffin isn't using original discs, *might* be a pirate, so we better check."