Karaoke Forums

I agree that they should go after everyone who buys one of these drives. Remember, a lot of KJ's were once home users who decided to turn pro. So, just because they're not a professional KJ now, doesn't mean that won't change in the future. In which case, they'll already have all the music they need to take it publicly.

So, the answer is... go after everyone. The pro and the home user. Illegality does not discriminate.

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That's a good point, Alan. Probably every KJ started out as a home user.

To your other points, a single manu probably can't make a huge difference. In my view, their role is not be the police in the first place. It isn't their job to clean up the industry. But if they can go about recouping some of their own losses and do it the right way where they are getting the right people, then I think they should go for it. If it happens to change how the bad guys go about their business of selling drives, or even make it a tad more difficult, then its a bonus.

Only time will tell if it makes a dent or not. At least good guys shouldn't get caught up in a blindly thrown net if it doesn't.

I think what all the KJ's here are missing is that;
IF this were a case of someone purchasing a hard drive;
#1. AND they are a home user,
#2. and they never use the drive at all, either for home or commercial use,
#3. and they didn't even make the copies that are on the drive,
then this is a lawsuit based solely on possession of unauthorized copies and not the commercial use of those copies.

If you want cheer on rights holders to sue for just possession and not commercial use, then this would put a whole bunch of KJ's (that believe they're somehow "legal") in the same crosshairs.

It's heartening to see how most of you are supporting what most of you have criticized about illegal hard drives over the years. I won't give away the store by describing the process in detail, but it should be noted that this isn't our first rodeo and it is a process that was started many years ago when we partnered with SC in creating KIAA. Unfortunately we had some philosophical differences so we went in different directions, and for reasons I'm not at liberty to disclose, things were put on hold until all of the Ts were crossed and the Is were dotted. There are so many moving parts to this which makes the copyright approach so difficult (some of them were even mentioned here), but rest assured that every objection (and some as yet to be mentioned here) made in this forum has been raised by defendant's counsel but to no avail. This has been well thought out for years and the time has finally arrived to implement the process on a larger scale. There are far more of these buyers/sellers that have settled after seeking counsel than the very few that have decided to litigate. Incidentally, the process is so much smoother when the defendant seeks and obtains a competent IP attorney rather than aunt Mary the real estate lawyer. Also, there is no such thing as "freeware" by the way. Unless a copyright has expired into the public domain it is still valid and active. Even if the company that produced the sound recording is no longer in business and can no longer defend their property, there's still the music composition and I can assure you that these compositions are not "freeware" by any stretch of the imagination.

If there is no such thing a "freeware" then why did Jim Harrington, a lawyer cite the reason for obtaining the copyright to CB ,was to prevent it from falling into "freeware" status?

Oh yes you have a mysterious, magical process in which to deal legally with the problem of piracy. It only took you all this time to develop it, and lay it on everyone. You took too long for some of us, we are already done, and have been done for some time. I'm glad I didn't wait for you to come up with the solution. I might have passed on.

Yes. "...lawsuit based solely on possession..."
Lawsuit can NOT proceed without evidence in the FIRST PLACE because:
1. A Disclaimer from the Get Go indicates that any BRAND may be missing.
So, can't prove any particular BRAND was on the HD.
2. In this case, STELLAR is the one suing.
Didn't have any Stellar on the DRIVE...prove it did.
3. Didn't want any Stellar. NO INTENT.
Prove someone wanted Stellar.

Wow, unbelievable.

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(1) From the way many are wildly speculating about Stellar's plan of recourse, I gather not many followed the links to a couple other, earlier cases that mrmarog kindly supplied in the 7th post near the very top of this thread.

As in one of those cases, first the producer (Stellar) buys one of the hard drives advertised on Ebay, impersonating a regular buyer. Then when they receive it, they look at it to see if their content is on there. If it is, then they have physical evidence in hand with which to start legal proceedings against the seller. They don't have to pressure Ebay into disclosing who the other buyers were, the court can order the seller (now the defendant) to disclose a list of customers.

(2) LR, without going back and checking Harrington's posts on the CB matter, I'm pretty sure he used the term "freeware" figuratively, not literally. It's not that the CB catalog would really become "freeware" in a legal sense if the trademark wasn't actively defended, the concern was that the library would be treated just like freeware if no one was defending the brand. And for PEP and everyone else, that would have been just as bad, because that's a really big catalog for anyone to compete with.

Copyrights on sound recordings do not expire for 70 years -- no karaoke producer is that old! Even Pioneer laser discs are just a fraction of that age. Copyrights on the composition (the writer's rights) last even longer, 70 years from the writer's death. Baby boomer music ain't gonna be free 'til after the baby boomers are gone.

It makes little difference to me personally EP. I'm way past caring what Stellar does or doesn't do. I will probably be dead before the baby boomer music is, but then who is going to sing it since most of the baby boomers will be gone as well. Freeware whether figuratively or literally makes no difference to me practically speaking. It did not effect me when I was hosting and now that I'm really retired, it means even less. That is all I really care about right now, the rest of this is sound an fury signifying nothing. If Stellar wants to finally do something fine and dandy, it just doesn't effect me.

I remember how everyone thought SC aka PEP was going to do something. When it was all said and done it was disappointing to say the least.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but freeware wasn't part of the deal when PEP purchased the CB trademark. Let's remember, there are a lot of differences between copyright and trademark and PEP's attempts until recently dealt with trademark. Trademarks must be active and must be defended. PEP was attempting to keep the CB trademark active. They never purchased any copyright materials that I know of. There wasn't any copyright material left to acquire.

How will you catch the many people who just downloaded their karaoke from Torrent sites? There are probably many more of them than there are people who bought loaded hard drives.

Chip, I'm having a little difficulty following your logic. Why would #1 ... home user purchase a hard drive if they #2 ... never use the drive at all, either for home or commercial use? Why would someone purchase a hard drive if they don't intend to use it? Also, what's the relevance of #3? What does it matter if they made the copies themselves or purchased them from a third party? It's still copyright infringement either way. To the best of my knowledge, the law makes no distinction in this regard, but if you know something I don't please enlighten me. If according to your last sentence "a whole bunch of KJ's" are by infringers by your own definition, then you're damn right they're in the same crosshairs. Are you actually trying to suggest that a KJ could somehow unwittingly purchase a hard drive with a 100,000 or more songs and not even remotely suspect that it could be illegal? They would have to be pretty damn stupid to think that, and if they are that stupid then they have no business being in a business whose primary service is to provide products containing the intellectual property of others. I suspect that anyone who is that stupid might also become a prime candidate for a future Darwin award. Then again, a little chlorination of the gene pool might not be such a bad idea after all.

I was not aware that you were a lawyer, and had such a solid grasp on the rules of evidence, but I'll be sure to direct any future defendants to this site where they can PM you to get your legal opinion. Of course what better way to prove your credential than to purchase one of these drives yourself, file the disclaimer you speak of and then litigate the lawsuit, and I can assure you that such actions will be accompanied by a lawsuit. After all, just think of all the money you'll make with your COUNTER SUIT.

I'm beginning to think that either your mother dropped you on your head when you were a child or maybe your hitting the sauce a bit too much when posting on the forum. Why I'm even responding to someone who thinks that anarchy and capitalism are mutually exclusive terms is puzzling but nonetheless I don't follow nor do I care what SC/PEP or Jim Harrington does, has done or plans on doing. I wish them no ill will but I can assure you that they aren't the arbiters of intellectual property law and I'm quite certain that they would agree with that assessment. My legal counsel didn't just fall off the turnip wagon yesterday, and I have every confidence that it knows what it's doing, and judging by the results thus far, it would be hard for anyone to argue that point.
Whether or not Jim used the term "freeware" or in whatever context it was used is irrelevant. The law is the law, period, end of story. Got it Kemosabe? I don't really follow these things all that closely but I as I recall Digitrax purchased or was assigned all of the CB content/copyrights. I assume that it was the trademark that SC/PEP purchased, and not the copyrights, but I could be wrong.

You can marginalize what I say all day long with statements like "Oh yes you have a mysterious, magical process ....", etc., but it only goes to show just how petty you can be. Perhaps you should stop watching reruns of old Perry Mason episodes and stop trying to play lawyer and focus on your KJ skills instead. This may be difficult for a malcontent to understand but you really should try to tone down the negativity and try to look at the positive side of things. Some people can turn lemons into lemonade while others turn lemonade into lemons. Which type are you?

I think that I'll just take a wait and see approach to this whole thing.I look forward to reading about all of the court victories and Stellar makes so much money that they start putting out new karaoke music for all of us to enjoy.

Good question to which I do not know the answer. I do believe however that jdmeister at one point mentioned something it this regard that sounded promising. I think it may either have had something to do with advancing technology or advanced surveillance techniques, the latter of which I would not be in favor of, but at the moment I don't think there's an easy way to catch these infringers other than in the act itself.

I thank you for your good wishes, but Stellar could never make enough money to recover its losses from piracy. Contrary to what some people might categorize as "lining our pockets" nothing could ever be further from the truth. I only wish that people who think like that could walk in other people's shoes. I wonder how they would feel to find their multi-million dollar business that they worked very hard to grow (and with a little bit of luck) go up in smoke due to a chain of events all spurred on by piracy. I wonder how they would feel when they had to tell their employees, some of whom had been with the company for over 20 years, that they no longer had a job, and I'm so sorry that you have children and a family to feed. I don't suspect I'll receive a lot of empathy nor am I fishing for it, but I do wish that some people would at least try to put themselves in those same shoes. As far as making more music, I still produce a fair amount of music but just not for the karaoke market ... that's not likely to ever happen again. Then again, I'm not one to ever say never.

I remember the good old days when multiple karaoke companies put out new tracks on a regular monthly basis. I'd have to agree that piracy was a major nail in that coffin. Catching pirates is like trying to catch a bee when it doesn't want to be caught.

I've heard horror stories where a legal KJ had hired people to run shows for him and those employees would copy his hard drives and go into business for themselves. If that wasn't bad enough; they would steal the gigs from the legal KJ because they had built relationships with the bar owners over the years and then low-balled their former boss.

I will be 60 next week, so that makes me a Baby Boomer. 10 years ago, I was at a James Taylor Concert. There were these teenagers seated next to me. They kept shouting "WE LOVE YOU, JT!!!!" I get the different Generations mixed up now... what would these teens be? Gen-Xers? Millenials? Whatever they are, it seems that James Taylor's music will live on well past us Baby Boomers being gone (and I'm sure they will still continue to sing his songs).

If what I say is of little consequence then why do you bother to respond at all? Do what you are going to do, since you are going to do it anyway. Whatever it is makes little difference to me. I'm going on vacation in another week. Outside of this forum what we all write here probably means little to the rest of the world. Oh by the way I'm retired I no longer KJ except by request, and then only if I want to take the job. You are right about me not being a lawyer, or knowing much about courts, since I have managed to stay out of them. I never had to sue anyone and I have never been named in a suit. That is a pretty good record considering I ran my own business for several years.