Invited in to help fight piracy!

As Ms Price pointed out - it is the cost of defending yourself that drives people to settle.

A couple of notes for people to think about and discuss with your attorney if you find yourslef in the SC sights:

The "trademark" is applied to the entire SC catalog across all products they sell. The use must be public to constitute infringment. It is entirely possible that no matter how many SC tracks you have - the trademark claim may consitutue a singular infringment, thus making ridiculous the per track damage threats SC typically refers too. (The minimum damage award on a singular case of infringement is about $250.)

Even under a copyright case - each track would require it's own unique registration for such extensive damages to apply. If the copyright registration applies to an entire disc or collection - that counts as one infringement.

You do not have to settle. You can represnt yourself in settlement negotiations (and they are just that - negotiations with no legal ramifications except for what information you choose to expose.) You can also represent yourself in a law suit. The bulk of the work in these case is done by correspondence not court appearances.

For example, you can respond to a SC letter by requesting additional information and documentation to support their claim including, but not limited too: the exact product(s) for which they are making a claim, the copyright registration certificates applicable to each product, and the contract, license, or legally binding disclosures, supporting their contention that your computer use constitutes a default breach.

They will avoid dsiclosing what it is you ask for, and typically reply making the same assertions. You then ask again and remind them that you can take no action without the information you have reasonably requested to support their claim.

If they file suit the court will want to know why they failed to cooperate with any reasonable requests made prior to filing, and you can now demand any such relevent information by way of an interogatory - and answer to which is required for their case to proceed.

They will object to your interogatory and you must reply to their objections. None of this requires a lawyer, but of course legal assistance goes a long way to winning. They will use this same process to seek an "audit" and you must object on the basis that allegations are not evidence and that a law suit is an opportrunity to present evidence and not merely a vehicle to hunt for it.

It can't be determined what arguments or objections would stand, becasue NONE of these cases has ever been taken to court. The upside of that is SC doesn't know either and what they threaten is speculation about their own position.

Personally, I would NEVER talk by telephone with SC or their attorney and demand that all communication be in wirting. Otherwise, you are simply inviting them to apply pressure and threats in a medium that provides no recall. Note that "deadline dates" set by SC in their own communications are just that - dates they set to apply pressure to you. Only the dates contained in an actual court document or summons have a default legal consequence. Nonetheless, you should always try to reply within that window even if just to notify them that you require additional time to respond.

The main thing is to be aware of your actual arguments. If you are in fact violating their copyright or trademark, you will (even if you get the damages reduced to near nothing) end up paying their legal fess which are likley to be about the same $6,000 it costs to buy the product.

Get it?

 

My OPINION is that if they "used Jennifer" they could simply point the finger to her as their "de facto investigator."

In any case, the point here is that Sound Choice made a deal to reimburse her for her expense and they've not made good on their promise because they have what they wanted.

Once again; Why am I not surprised?

I think it's high time to copy all these "interesting stories" and send them to the same newspaper that printed the "woe is me" story about Kurt burning up his retirement and running up his credit cards.... I think they might be interested in how things are really working.

 

I understood your point, the problem is the PROMISE took place on the phone. It's up to Kurt to make this right...


I am kinda perplexed in the way I wanna express myself given the upcoming zero tolerance policy. I feel that Kurt should be required to sign up under his REAL name and not use the SC moniker, because we have our hands tied in making our opinions known, because ANYthing we say is either taken as a jab at him personally or a jab at SC. There is no way to express ourselves regarding his OWN words or SC.

With that being said...I will say this... Jennifer IF you attend the Cheerleader vacation or whatever it is... MAYBE he will do whats right. I certainly hope he does as I think it would change the way alot of us view him and his company. Cause while alot of us may disagree on what we feel is a fair way for him to conduct his business, I think we all can agree that whats fair is fair.

 

Hag,

In what way would it change the way you respond to anyone's post under the zero tolerance policy regardless of the name they use, you nor I along with several others here are signed up under either made up or company names. Everyone here knows that the Sound Choice name is used by Kurt, zero tolerance is zero tolerance regardless of who the poster is.

 

Well considering YOU NEVER are opposed to ANYTHING done by Kurt or SC. I didn't really expect you to understand or even comment. However since you did, I will try to explain it, however I don't think it requires it to anyone who is not a cheerleader.

EVERYTIME we say anything or have an opinion on Kurt or SC we are accused of being ANTI SC, we are reported or harassed etc...but you already know this don't you. Anyhow, if we disagree with a COMPANY I don't think that should be grounds for ANY kind of BAN... and there is no way for us to disagree without KURT taking it PERSONALLY.

IMHO

 

Hag,

1an·ti noun \?an-?t?, ?an-t?\
plural antis
: one that is opposed

Being Anti Sound Choice is not an infraction, calling him/them a liar, cheat, bully, vindictive little man, etc. however would be, there is a difference (as has been pointed out to me over and over again).

I am Anti-pirate, being called anti pirate doesn't strike me as a negative or name calling, just as being called a Sound Choice cheerleader doesn't strike me as derogatory and I certainly wouldn't see it as an infraction and would hope that the moderators wouldn't see it that way either.

So there is no infraction for disagreeing with Sound Choice or Kurt, you see I am disagreeing with you here without calling you any names!

It is easy for you to say "In my opinion the Sound Choice Lawsuits are wrong and Sound Choice will not receive any benifit from them", just as it is equally easy for me to say "In my opinion the Sound Choice Lawsuits are on the money and Sound Choice will prevail either in or out of court and the industry itself will benifit from it".

In either case nothing was said that could be construed as baiting, flaming or name calling. Being Anti or opposing the position or veiws of someone doesn't make it an infraction of the rules here.

 

I don't have to call him all that...
Other people already said it!

 

Just to make something perfectly clear here Thunder; we are ALL "anti-pirate." It's not some exclusive club nor does it exclude anyone who doesn't blindly agree with every action of Sound Choice.

I believe that posting a dictionary definition of any word is simply uncalled for and antagonistic as well- but that is just MY OPINION and your mileage may vary.

 

Actually, you are incorrect, way back when I strongly opposed Kurt's position on 1:1. My opinion back in the day when computers were first hitting the shows, that allowing 1:1 copies would hurt the industry (much like Joe thinking that doing so would create a large jump in piracy) what I didn't realize at the time (being stuck way back here in the sticks) was that piracy was already in full bloom. Even back then Sound Choice was thinking ahead of the game, when I went digital I did so by the 1:1 rule and therefore am not frightened by the lawsuits that are coming out more and more often as I know all I have to do is go through an audit of my system.

 

I don't see where the actual definition of a word would be either uncalled for or antagonistic as it clarifies what is meant by a particular term.


But Hag's position and mine on the subject at hand are indeed antagonistic (in opposition to one another) in nature.

 

I certainly do hope he makes things right. Like I said in an earlier post, I have faith he will at this point. Having said that, I had a sleepless night last night after reading Athena's post that SC authorized music from Australia. The discs we sent them had the trademark from SC Australia. We were told by Michael that SC never authorized any music out of Australia. So now the question is, were the discs I sent in actually legal discs and if so why haven't I gotten them back?

 

Let me see if I can help.
Let's create a little scenario.
Billy B owns XYZ Company.
He signs up under the moniker "XYZ Company", and NOT his own name.
Now supposing someone wants to say that XYZ Company is crap. How can you separate that fact the he is calling the COMPANY and NOT Billy B crap?
You can't. So in essence, anything bad said about XYZ Company will be taken personally by Billy B.
For those that would argue that nothing bad should be said about a company in the first place, it is a known right to state one's own opinions about a product or a company.
I happen to think Tide laundry detergent stinks. I think Dodge is horrible and they make garbage. Etc, etc.
For example, I would highly doubt that anyone here would argue against the fact that some SC selections are absolute garbage and that there are better selections out there by other companies. It's a statement that Kurt would not be able to take personally. But say that Sound Choice is garbage, and now you have a possibly ambiguous statement.
Are you saying the company is garbage? Or perhaps you're calling Kurt down?
Kind of makes it impossible to be critical of the SC company, doesn't it.
But you might rejoice over that! LOL

 

Thanks...
Like I said...MOST people wouldn't even need to respond to what I wrote asking why...

 

What you need to keep in mind is that Kurt IS a member here NOT just a company. This is a forum, obviously no one is going to tell you that your not allowed to disagree with someone and debate things as you see fit. BUT, attacking EVERY post someone makes out of what appears to be hatred and only with the motive to attack every post made by them will not be tolerated. That applies to everyone, not just Sound Choice.

 

My solution will be to say Sound Choice Company, or SC company...
Because I don't see Kurt changing hi moniker anytime soon.

 

Then I will hold you to that because so far, that's all we've gotten from SC for disagreeing with their methods.

And in the same breath, you need to decide from which side of the post you are going to judge posts. Because of someone says; "the guitar player on SC#### track must be an idiot!" Then how do you see that?

Because Kurt is posting as "Sound Choice" as not as "kurt slep" he gets "double protection?" That's not right and you know it's not.

 

It's the same on both sides. You both treat each other the exact same. I'm not siding with either side on that behavior, it's just time for it to come to an end

 

What I said had nothing to do with picking a side OR us flaming, trolling, insulting or whatever else you wanna pick. I made a simple statement.
Why is it hard to understand?

 

Hag, please see above your post. I am responding to Chip not anything you have posted

 

I see it as the difference between saying that your experience with Dodge products is that they break down alot vs saying Dodge is a load of c--p operated by sleazy weasels. I think one can disagree with a business practice and say why without it being a personal attack. I think one can rate a product negatively without it being a personal attack. It is just when it gets to calling the person themselves "vindicitive little man," etc. that it crosses over to personal attack.