Sound Choice Had To Pay?

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 7:43 am

I saw a post on the K/S forum stating "The lawsuit settled Dec 11, 2013 with CAVS receiving $375,000.00 payment". It gives no other details and I was wondering if anyone on this forum had heard anything?

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 9:42 pm

I managed to get a little more information concerning the settlement of this lawsuit. It seems that originally CAVS was seeking originally more than 15 million in damages, and settled for $375,000.00. This has been confirmed by SC's legal eagle Jim on the K/S forum. Naturally he is spinning this as no big deal. Sort of like when SC sues a host for big money for pirating and ends up settling with them. Usually for licensing the GEM series.

Jim maintains that this was a voluntary settlement and that Kurt's insurance paid off the plaintiff aka CAVS. There is still the EMI case pending, I wonder if SC's insurance is going to raise their premiums or cancel their insurance. The price tag there will be much higher and maybe EMI won't want to settle.

Post by **wiseguy** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 11:13 pm

I didn't know there was malpractice insurance for karaoke music manufacturers.

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Thu Jan 23, 2014 6:45 am

I don't know if it is exactly malpractice insurance or insurance that covers a company if they happened to be sued. The first time insurance entered the picture was during the EMI case. Both KTS and SC were sued by EMI, and according to Jim KTS was forced to settle by their insurance company, even though they wanted to continue fighting. It makes sense if you are the one paying the tab, you would want to limit your liability.

This gives cover to the lawyer and the company, they can always use the lame excuse that the insurance company forced them to settle, even though they will spin it they could have won. The insurance companies are pretty savvy, they know when to cut their loses. I don't think any settlement would be made if their was a reasonable chance of winning. Just my opinion of course.

Post by **wiseguy** » Thu Jan 23, 2014 3:51 pm

The malpractice insurance comment was just a jab at SC. The type of liability insurance that would protect a company against law suit judgements would likely be very expensive. And of course the rates are going to go up substantially when big payouts occur.

I have to wonder why this settlement is being made public by SC. Typically there is a promise extracted from the opposing party not to discuss the case or the terms of the settlement

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Thu Jan 23, 2014 3:57 pm

So they admitted what? They didn't have proper permission to use certain songs. So they actually pirated music for profit? Hmmmm imagine that....

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Thu Jan 23, 2014 5:29 pm

Actually wiseguy SC didn't leak this settlement, they kept it secret for over a month since it was reached back on Dec 11th of last year. It was only when it was brought to light that they decided to do some explaining. The dollar amount is a matter of public record, the details of the settlement are what is kept secret.

In this particular case from what I understand Bigdog it is not about piracy per say, but rather SC making false and libelous printed statements about CAVS, that hurt that companies business. They made a big mistake in how the worded the printed material they circulated. It implied that the CAVS machine was illegal which it wasn't only the SC material placed on it. CAVS had nothing to do with the material on the machine they only sold the machine, what a person does with it after the sale is that persons responsibility.

The reason I feel CAVS settled for much less than 15 million dollars goes back to a bad experience with CB I believe. CAVS sued CB over the SCDG's CB produced for them. It seems CB did not pay the proper fees to produce the product in question. They lied and mislead CAVS that the fees had been paid and the publishers became upset. CAVS won an award for over $200,000.00 I recall. They did not collect since CB went into foreclosure and reemerged as at least three different companies DTE/PR/WWD. I'm sure this time around CAVS decided it was better to take the 375,000.00 in the hand rather than the 15 million in the bush. After all if they forced SC into foreclosure or bankruptcy they could once again end up with nothing.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Mon Jan 27, 2014 1:26 pm

Still sounds like we are dealing with slimey companies.

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 12:06 am

Funny Bigdog the same companies that are trying to enforce morality on the karaoke hosts are themselves totally without scruples themselves.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Wed Jan 29, 2014 11:13 pm

Funny how I can remember Sound Choice having to reissue many discs over the years because they had to remove certain songs...they didn't have permission to use...the biggest one was the infamous Eagles disc... SC8125.....

A very long history of abuse....defiance...& piracy... Oh my..

djBe · Post by **djBe** » Wed Feb 05, 2014 5:21 pm

Intriguing stuff. My hard drive is all SCDG-based including the six chartbuster essential scdgs that got me those 2700 songs for, well, a song. Today, my library is a hodgepodge of hard copy including cdgs, scdgs, and even some extremely weird vcds...i even have some playboy karaoke dvds (boobs and butts, no full frontal)....quikhits, pophits and just a few others are still putting out music on disc, i keep up on those brands with an eye to loading them but i am lazy so i usually ust pay the disc. 95% off my show i can pull off my hard-drive - which is external into a CAVS player. i am the old-school fool on this thread but it works and no way am I signing up for the cloud. };=D

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Mon Mar 09, 2015 10:53 am

You don't have to worry about your SCDG's I have all of them but the Spanish Topic one's. CAVS unlike SC is not going to sue you. At least that is what I understand when I contacted CAVS. Only SC has this legal process equals sales business model. I even converted my SCDG's back to discs to download on a hard drive player. That is over 10,000 songs right there all legally purchased.

Right now there are only two brands that sue SC and CB. They both now are not even the original manufacturer's, but rather LLC's set up by these manus. Jim Harrington the legal mouthpiece for SC recently stated " That theirs was the only company going after pirates". So I don't even know if CB aka Piracy RecoveryLLC, is still pushing the legal solution angle.