Hello from Chartbuster!

You're right.. I should have worded it differently:
He will generate "cash flow".... but it will be "flowing away"....

And it is true that anyone that puts out $99k in advance - for a 5 year amortized return is not a genius.

Many of us "older" KJ's were more careful about purchases because we were subjected to "throttling" on the part of the manufacturers.... 4 songs you need on a disc of 15 or 18 and the rest either dupes or filler songs that no one will ever sing anyway. Like "Buttons & Bows" and "I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts"....

What is amazing now is the incredibly short shelf-life of popular songs... good for only about a month (unless they are super smash hits,) then forgotten.

 

Oh, sure, we have every piece of correspondence from everyone that ever wrote us.

OK Chip, if we didn't respond (presuming we ever received your request, which would have likely been handled by one of my staff), I apologize on behalf of Sound Choice. If you will send your letter to us again, I will respond.

BUT!!! I already know how you tend to overlook IMPORTANT verbiage in various pieces of text (whether it's intentional or accidental, I don't know), so I will let everyone here know the text (that I am presuming you are questioning) that appears on our discs.

Note: This is text that was required to be put on our discs by a great number of publishers.

WARNING: This material is protected by Federal Copyright laws. UNAUTHORIZED duplication, public performance, or Broadcast is a violation of applicable laws. These are professional re-creations and not renditions by the original artists.

Chip - do you see the word "UNAUTHORIZED" that precedes public performance?? I have stated before that the publishers AUTHORIZE the use of Karaoke CDGS for use in professional /commercial karaoke shows. BUT our CDG licenses do not include the right to format and/or media shift, so we can't pass that along to the KJ and they remain at risk.

Even ASCAP and BMI have KARAOKE Performance licenses for bars, so they obviously AUTHORIZE the playing of the song in a commercial venue WHEN the venue is licensed.

So, if we didn't answer that question for you (and others) before, I hope that it has been answered now.

There are other "answers" that we have provided (whether or not you like the facts, they are what they are) on our FAQs for various topics. Here is another one about Public Performance:

http://www.soundchoicestore.com/gem-faq-karaoke-pg-64.html#a18
18. Do I need any Performance License to put on a show?

If you are hosting a karaoke show (where other people come up and sing to your collection of karaoke tracks) and you are doing PRIVATE EVENTS (weddings, birthday parties, Church social events, corporate parties, etc.) you do not need further licenses to use Sound Choice discs. If you are hosting an event in a venue such as a restaurant or bar, the venue is supposed to have PERFORMANCE LICENSES issued from ASCAP (www.ascap.com ) or BMI (www.bmi.com ) which would cover your playing there. Again, the requirement for the performance license is on the venue, not you.

 

Thought I asked a real question that was legitamate. :errpill:

Not sure why I got a response like that one, your the one who mentioned you have to ask for this request , I assumed you kept records. He knows it was signed for and by whom, so it wouldn't make sense for that request to not be filed if it is in fact so important.

 

You mean you don't?.... You don't save legal stuff?....

I just love it when first you flippantly have to say "presuming we ever received your request" to insinuate that I'm making up something and then offer to read what you now blame your staff for failing to file.... Nothing's ever your fault or failure is it?

Why would I possibly need a public performance license from you now? Kind of a moot point isn't it?

Sorry if the members of your paid staff don't know how to file anything, but here's the most I'm willing to give you 10 years later:

In case I forget, let me preface this by saying; IN MY OPINION...

As a matter of fact, I do see the word "UNAUTHORIZED" thank you and I don't see anything that says to the effect "unauthorized by the publishers." The word "unauthorized" comes from YOU, not a class (the publishers), and that's EXACTLY the problem. As I mentioned before, it doesn't matter what the agreement is between you and publishers, you claim to own the content of the disc -including your trademark, yes? - then this statement is A SPECIFIC WRITTEN DENIAL to perform this work publicly to the person purchasing the disc and it always has been. This makes your discs, and DK's and all the others with this denial - simply a "play at home disc." And all these years, you've been marketing them to KJ's specifically to violate the very denial you printed... and then chose to include it in a suit... or two... or three... I lost count.

The ONLY way you can "authorize" this public performance is the same way you denied it and that is IN WRITING ONLY. Have your "legal staff" look that one up.

Performance Rights Societies have their own contracts/agreements and remedies when it comes to venues.

YOU sued John Dean (Karaoke World) AND INCLUDED PUBLIC PERFORMANCE as a charge in the lawsuit. If the above statement is simply printed there for the "convenience of the agreement with publishers" then you wouldn't have been able to include that charge would you? But you did as one of your "rights" and not a right of the publisher. BTW, it's U.S. District Court, Case: 1:99CV00457 if you care to look it up because apparently, "your staff" doesn't know how to file or keep anything important.

 

And there's the rub. There are NO cases that have gone to court specifically for commercial use, or for karaoke, for that matter. Until there is, we can argue and suppose until we are blue in the face and it makes no lick of difference to anyone. The question is undecided, and will remain so until there is a case FULLY TRIED IN COURT!

How many times do I have to tell some of you - unless rights are specifically granted in writing, they are "reserved to the rights owner"? And that is NOT YOU! So, until you can go and get something that you would like to do or see happen, OVERTURNED or further defined by a court YOU ARE "IN THE WRONG". In the case of "fair use", additional "limited rights" were defined under specific circumstances granting less restricted rights to home users or schools in some cases (and taking the right of control away from the rights holders). So, in the absence of a further loosening of rights "for commercial use" by our copyright and trademark laws, the rights holders (publishers and karaoke producers) have the law and the ability to sue to enforce the law on their side. And the rights users (the KJs) are infringing those rights if the rights holders do not specifically grant them additional rights under whatever conditions the rights holders deem appropriate. That is the LAW as it is now and I am sorry if many of you don't like it.

While you might hope that a case goes all the way to the courts and a new precedence is set, you should not be trying to convince everyone else that you are "right” - when you are not. If you are so adamant about wanting the case to be settled, then why don't YOU intentionally violate Sound Choice or Chartbuster's rights, get yourself caught and then YOU can be the one to continue to litigate and not settle - and hope that you prevail. But as Possomdog pointed out - it hasn't been going "your way" in any of the recent cases against infringers. And apparently those who we are suing, upon advise from their counsel, are deciding that they are likely to lose and the BEST course is to settle. (Which they are doing!)

So all this arguing back and forth and accusing one another of this or that and the personal attacks is only serving to divide the karaoke community as a whole (No, I'm NOT including pirates in the karaoke community!).

Well the only "division" is between those who understand and accept the law and those who disagree with or don't like the current law and are making up stuff that is unsupported or illogical in their arguments against those following current law. But your "fight" should be with Congress and the Copyright Tribunal, not among the other Karaoke Hosts who support the current laws or manufacturers who have to follow those laws or who might be using them legally to run their business. I have said many times, the manufacturers are as hindered by many of the publishing laws as you are and would like to see changes AND we are going about trying to negotiate changes. But even as we are doing so, we are living within the structure of them. I can tell you that MONEY will be the #1 thing that will convince the publishers to allow many of the things that you want. But until we can show them royalty payments from product sold they are not going to even look at any new licensing models. So, get out and help us eliminate piracy under the current laws so we can pay royalties under our current licenses in order to convince them that there are enough KJs willing to pay for content and make it worth their while to consider changing the laws or our license agreements.

What really should be happening is that we, as a community with the same general interest, should be bonding together, despite our differences of opinions (cause that's all they are, folks!).

WRONG!! Copyright law is not an "opinion” - that's why the various Codes and Paragraphs of the Copyright Code are referred to as LAW and not "OPINION". Those of you who are arguing against Sound Choice and (soon, I will bet) Chartbuster would like to get the rest of the community to accept your "opinions" as LAW, but you are not willing to do anything to actually change the law using the process by which Copyright and Trademark laws are changed.


We should be focusing on the GOOD aspects of the career we chose and the passion of our hobby.

Sorry again, I believe everyone on this site and certainly everyone we are investigating and suing are not running karaoke shows as a "hobby". It is for commercial purposes and remuneration.

Not demanding that one should or shouldn't do this or that or think this way or that way in order to be a "good little karaoke denizen".

We (Chartbuster and Sound Choice and our supporters) are only "demanding" (your word) that you accept and follow the law and allow us the same opportunity and if you don't like it, argue with your congressman. There is a new election coming up in a few days - contact your congressmen and see where they stand on copyright and trademark laws. I can tell you, that despite being very liberal, this congress under the direction of Obama is looking to TIGHTEN enforcement and the Justice department has sided in every case on the side of Rights Holders.

We all have one thing in common: a love of karaoke.
Wrong again - I think the ONE thing that we ALL have in common is that "karaoke" (in whatever form or enterprise we are involved) is to a great extent a BUSINESS (whether or not it's currently financially successful is not relevant).

Why can't we just focus on that?

Why don't you focus on helping all of us, who either love karaoke or our livings from it, fight piracy if you want "karaoke" to be around for another generation? Diafel, you are another one who has done nothing to help in the effort - only criticize Sound Choice for what we are doing. I believe your "solution" was to simply go up to a host and ask them if they were legal or ask them to show us their discs". I countered that that was not a WORKING SOLUTION and offered you the challenge that if you could prove me wrong, I would certainly consider modifying our methods. You declined! As a matter of fact EVERY ONE of you who are disagreeing with our methods has not offered one workable or realistic solution - and when I ask you to prove your "solutions" are viable, you decline. You even refused to do something as simple as helping flag Craigslist postings for illegal drives.

I can tell you that OUR methods are working and the two times we "failed" (according to our detractors) by naming someone who had their discs, those people have turned out to be staunch supports of Sound Choice. And there are several posters here who have even been sued by Sound Choice who are also beomce staunch supporters of our "horrible" methods. But you refuse to accept that and call these folks names like "shill" for Sound Choice (didn't see any MOD flagging those who wrote that for that name calling, either.)

I would like to get this thread back on track and say "Welcome” to Debi from Chartbuster and add "Don't waste your time here dealing with those whose only "methods" are noise and more noise and who have neither law nor logic on their side and who REFUSE to join in (using any working methodology) to help in the fight against piracy.

 

Thank you for that post Kurt, and with that, i'm closing this thread. This was a welcome to Chartbuster and has gone Waay off course. So Welcome Chartbuster, i look forward to what you can add to our community