from the sounds of that quote, the RIAA/GOVT are still working on their own but just using information available to them to investigate leaks/piracy. I cant imagine us not being able to hide this info on our profiles.

WOW!!! This really hits home for me because one of our local big spots (where i will be performing on new years eve GULP) is being sued by Jay Z for playing his music (unbrella to eb exact).....with 2.0 sending the tracks to higher authorities this could becoem common practice...how are ou supposed to break new music with shit like this going on

www.local15tv.com

Jay Z Sues Mobile Club Owner

The rapper says the club is playing his songs without paying for them.

Agents for ASCAP, the enforcer of music royalties, observed the club playing a whole list of songs they're not licensed to play, according to the website TMZ, agents

The club's owner, Tony Moore says he is legally licensed to play more than six million songs including Jay-Z.

"There's no doubt we're being picked on there's no other club in Mobile licensed to play any songs let alone all of them, the common people are saying what he doesn't have enough money," Moore said.

Moore says the suit has hurt his his business, but Jay-Z remains one of his favorite artist.

"He's gonna be even more of my favorite when I countersue him for defamation of character, once I get into his pockets."

Honestly i would have to see more details from this....how would the authorities know if you were playing an illegal track in front of a paying crowd or if your some bedroom 14 year old mixing for your stuffed animals in your room. Being a bedroom DJ requires no liscensing fees or regrestration. Im also sure you would have the ability to turn this off, i know my SL laptop never connects to the internet so unless it alsop prints a copy and sends it through snail mail my information stays safe......it sounds like serato took that twitter track update thread seriously

how can jay z sue a club, when the fact remains that clubs pushed his music when radio would not. you think every club in new york is licenesed?

EXACTLY....when i was told about this i was like dude Jay-Z is not sueing a 300 person capacity club in mobile for playing a top 40 track...then i googled it and holy shit it was not a lie it is on legit news sites apparently someone from his camp somehow ended up in this shithole spot and felt it was necessary to report the wrong doing that was going on lol ITS CRAZY

Whats crazy is theres a possibility i may be guest DJin at this spot on new years eve...the lil devil on my shoulder is tellin me to do something special with an Either sample to get the crowd hype =:)...mabye since hes takin time out to sue this place he wouldnt mind startin a beef with me and dissin me on a track LOL!!

You would think they would go after VDJ, which facilitates downloading of illegal songs right within their software.

Before we go further with this thread and start accusing Rane/Serato of getting us jailed, It would be nice to get a word from RANE/Serato on this matter. I know it might affect alot of us, if we have to get licensed or continue to be licensed/pay dues to play music.

I don't see how this would be a problem, just turn off the feature or disable your network adapters. Fuck greedy labels, we're helping them out by playing their music. But its all good, these are the same stupid people who can't sell albums anymore! haha lol

I, for one know, that alot of venues dont want to pay royalties (which seems shooting yourself with your own gun, in the club)

True. I never have my wireless on while DJing.

"Jay-Z" isn't suing the club. Jay-Z's "lawyers" are suing on his behalf....because they can. That's what they're paid to do. Same thing's happening across all genres. There's an article on TMZ about some rockers doing it too.

Wow. Thats amazing that it could be done. I guess everyone better re-think their DJ game. The next time a song gets popular, Your venue might get sued. LOL

Isnt that really ass backwards tho? Umbrella was popular and said club played said popular top 40 charting song... How was someone from Jay-Z's camp to know the venue wasnt licensed? DO Akon's people roll into a club and ask "Show me you ASCAP/BMI paperwork?" WTF kind of attitude is that?

My guess is there are a whole bunch of people numerous degrees down the food chain that canvas places then check the ASCAP/BMI database to see if they have a license.

It's one of those "if you throw enough **, some of it's gonna stick" kinda deals.

Stupid ass lawyers

When an artist rolls into my spot, its almost expected that we would play their tracks if they aren't performing....so should we be asking the artists to pay the club for us(djs) to play the artists tracks?

RIAA and the music industry is going about this all wrong...what would happen if the radio said F IT...if you want us to play your songs, you are gonna have to give it to us free of any fees. See what happens then?

Good Scenario ^^

I suspect there may have been some hate from another club involved...just seems waayy to random

Not really. ASCAP / BMI / RIAA are starting to move to the next level. Wait and see, next year many of the places where you get you audio/video remixes will not be around...and their clients will be paying hefty fees for using them.

They have done this in other parts of the world and now they have enough legal law and experience behind them. The game is changing everyone.

I would suspect the same thing - clubs are grimey - ever look at YELP reviews on your spots? you will see lots of positive revies and then a bunch of negative reviews with someone that has no previous reviews...its all grimey out there...I know some clubs that have called out other clubs on all kinds of things, from under age drinking, to illegal back doors, etc etc...

This sounds to me like someone panicking. Im betting there will be an upcoming feature that will allow you to post your setlist to the forum. Thats all RANE is going to do. I SERIOUSLY doubt they will be handing setlists over to authorities. Now if your profile is open and you post this stuff its out there for EVERYONE even the RIAA to see.

Use some common sense here people.

So you're saying I should jump ship on my StricCroothWoder subscription? How I am I supposed to know if they are "legal"?

I think there is a big difference between companies like Promo Only and "StricCroothWoder".

I'd be hard pressed to try to sort out which of my mp3s are legit promo copies and which ones came off some unlegit remix site, I think the RIAA would have the same problems...


But like everyone else, I am waiting to see how the Serato forum mods will respond...i have a feelnig its gonna be "That will never happen"....

Well, to someone that's been involved with labels in the past it's obvious where to get legitimate product....

I just mean in the context of "their clients paying hefty fees for using them". These sites put up a deceivingly good front. I don't think the clients could ever be legally liable? Especially across borders? (or in Canada where p2p downloading is legal, just uploading is illegal)

See like i said earlier heres where i dont see this becomming a problem, lets say i legally purchase a copy of a nonlegit MP3 from thisripoffbootlegsite.com. Then i play it on a fri night in my istolethesemp3s practice set where i sit in my room and practice my set while i wait for the day i hit the big time.....even if that was in my profile unlesss im a big name DJ the authorities would have NO WAY to distinguish between me and DJ Yoshi playing for a 10 grand paycheck at the largest nightclub in the state....I dont have to have any liscense or registration fees paid to play whatever the fuck i want to at my house and i think a good majority of the SL units sold end up in hobbiests bedrooms.....this is all assuming the new hardware dosent have built in GPS that gives you the authoritys a GPS Google map twitter post with your location....anyone seen any news about a serato google colab or partnership

This is a very interesting topic, Audio 1, what source is your quote from? (at the beginning of this topic).

probably the NI forumlol

Naw. Its from Here hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com Its inregards to DJ's getting their laptops confiscated at so-called "illegal gatherings" which can be everything from "Illegal raves" to "your friends playing loud music in your apartment".... Civil rights being violated in more ways than one in the SF Bay Area...

I glanced through the article quickly and did not read anything about Serato in it...

Let me rephrase myself. Check the comments section of this article. Someone brought up what I quoted at the top of this thread. It was never as part of the main article and not something I said.

Audio 1 = Dr suess

red fish blue fish
RIAA sues fish

LOL

Regardless, It got people talking about the legality of music and even DJing within legal limits...

thats def some scary isshh.....

Im curious to know how this plan would play out if I did not have a profile with Rane/Serato, but I did indeed purchase their hardware?

It would def be weird for me If It was mandatory to create a Rane/Serato profile in order to run the v2.0 software... I'd prob stay on v1.92 until I hear that all this bogus.

Hopefully, a representative from Rane/Serato chimes in.

i think this is all speculation...if the information was legit and was truly out there that 2.0 has a feature like this SOMEONE on this board would be able to chime in...we have some of the biggest rane\serato fanboys on the planet on this board, isince half the board can tell me the weight and thickness of a vinyl thats still in drawing board mode then someone would surly know about a huge new feature in either the SL software or some rane hardware.

You would think that with the successful relationship Serato has built with record labels via whitelabel.net, the major labels don't think SSL is a bad thing. Probably bridges a growing gap between DJs and labels (see DJ Drama arrests, etc.).

One thing to clear up though, the ASCAP fees must be paid by VENUES in the U.S., not DJs. So even if a club gets sued, they shouldn't be able to get at the DJs in this manner (and if you were suing, who would you go after, the broke ass DJ or the club?). I'm not a lawyer, but studied law (esp. intellectual property) as an undergrad. BTW did you know 2 LIve Cru was in two different Supreme Court Cases? I digress...

If I were a label, my first target would be people selling HDs of mp3s and videos on ebay. So blatant.

That doesn't speak to the civil liberties violating shit that Audio1 describes in the bay area. And thats fucked up that Jay-Z is suing a club (I don't buy the "it's not Jigga, its his lawyers" line - they're one and the same: a BUSINESS, man!).

Its def not helping his name that on the TV and in news paper the headline is "Jay-Z sueing local club" especially since mobile should be wellll off his radar lol, i spoke with the owner and the interesting thing is how do they prove that that song was played that night, from the info avaliable there is no recording, video or otherwise of that night.

Audio 1, do you have a digital license? Read below and check the links...

A digital DJ license is required in some countries, including the United Kingdom[1] and Finland[2], to publicly play digital copies of copyrighted music. The license allows a DJ to copy music from original cds, vinyls or other media, to a computer's hard drive, an mp3 player or other digital audio players, for example to be used with a vinyl emulation software program, or in some cases to other digital media, such as cd-r or MiniDisc. In the countries where digital DJ licensing is used, the license is also required for playing music originally bought & downloaded directly on to a computer, usually in mp3 or similar format, unless the license of the online music store explicitly allows the public performance of the downloaded tracks.

Source: en.wikipedia.org
Additional Info: en.wikipedia.org

This is probably the most informational thread on these forums in quite some time. ROUND OF APPLAUSE! hahaha

Unless you have a digital license to rip cd's and/or vinyl to your hard drive and use the copyrighted material "publicly", the MAN has got you by the huevos!

Hey there Audio1 (and everyone),

We had been keeping an eye on that HHAP article, it's an interesting situation.

I'm keen to answer the subject of this discussion first, then I'll get into some details.

Rane/Serato working with RIAA/Govt Authorities?
No, Serato isn't working with RIAA/Govt Authorities, and Rane certainly isn't either.

Is Serato making a system to allow you to optionally send selected Sessions from your History to their website?
Yes we are. We were hoping to announce this with Scratch Live 2.0 (not long now!) but here is some early information for you.

Playlists will be a feature of our websites (ie ScratchLive.net, Serato.com, and Whitelabel.net) that allows you to store, edit and promote what you have played (ie your History). The History feature of Scratch Live and ITCH will allow you to select any number of History Sessions, and optionally “Export to Serato Playlists”, which sends information from those History Sessions from your Serato DJ software, to the Playlists feature.

Note that this is an entirely opt-in and in every other way optional feature.

Why is Serato making this?
The new Playlists feature in Scratch Live and ITCH will allow:
1. DJs to share their playlists easily (and live from a gig if they want)
2. Serato to create Serato DJ Charts
3. Serato to share play stats of Whitelabel.net tracks back to the Record Labels using Whitelabel.net

more on each of these situations follows...

1. What does "Sharing Playlists" mean?
Many DJs promote themselves by posting playlists of gigs or radio shows that they've performed. We've made a system to easily export your playlists to the internet.

Who will be able to view my Playlists?
There will be a Privacy Setting for each Playlist with the default being Private. You can choose to make some public to help promote yourself as a DJ. If you choose to make a Playlist public, then it will be available to everyone on the internet. If you leave a Playlist as Private then it will only be visible to you and Serato.

Does this mean all of my History will be sent to Playlists on the Serato Websites?
No, absolutely not! It's entirely up to you what you choose to share. You can choose what history sessions (ie gigs or radio shows) that you wish to export to Playlists. You can choose to submit some of your Playlists, all of your Playlists, or none at all. It's entirely up to you what information you share.

What Information is sent from your Serato DJ software to Playlists?
Right now I'm finalizing our Playlists Privacy Policy which will cover this (and everything else you need to know) in detail. But in short, we will send some basic computer info (eg Mac or PC), info about each session (eg did you use Scratch Live or ITCH, the time you started playing), and for each track in the session we send copies of certain ID3 tags as they are stored in the History: artist, track, album, etc, but please note that we do not send ID3 tags that are irrelevant to Serato such as Comments or Grouping, or the track Location (ie where the track lives on your computer hard drive).

2. What are the Serato DJ Charts?
The Serato DJ Charts are music charts compiled by Serato using Play Information from DJs who optionally wish to contribute their Playlists to the charts. It will be the most accurate representation of what DJs are playing around the world. There will be an option at the top of your Playlists page to “Contribute my plays to the Serato DJ Charts”. If you elect to contribute your Playlists to the Serato Charts, your information is submitted anonymously, but we will be looking at your location if we decide to make territory based charts (eg Serato US DJ Charts).

The Serato DJ Charts will be published on www.serato.com.

2. What will Serato be sharing with the Record Labels using Whitelabel.net?
At the top of your Playlists page will be an option to “Let Record Labels follow my Whitelabel Plays”. Selecting this option sends information from songs you have downloaded on Whitelabel to the Record Labels associated with those releases.

One of the reasons Serato started Whitelabel.net was to revive the tradition of DJs breaking records. Sharing these plays allows Record Labels to gauge how popular their tracks are with DJs. This is the most telling form of feedback - if DJs aren’t playing the tune, chances are it’s not a hit.

Please note that the only information we share we Record Labels will be from the plays of Whitelabel tracks. We already report previews and downloads, so reporting plays of a track is a logical progression. Tracks from Whitelabel are completely free and legal to download and play in the club, on the radio, etc (wherever you like, as long as all the required performance fees are paid by the club / radio / etc). As for all of your other tunes that will be listed on your Playlists, we are not sharing this with any Record Label or agency that has been suggested in this thread (although they may be able to see a particular gig of yours if you have made that Playlist Public).

Can any other third parties (such as the RIAA/Govt Authorities) Access Playlists Information?
Serato takes your privacy very seriously and we'll do our very best to keep any information you provide us private. However, just like everyone else who holds private data, we unfortunately cannot guarantee that we can hold it back from law enforcement agents if the authorities demand that we hand it over.

So just to be absolutely crystal clear here, the entire Playlists feature is completely optional. The only people we will share data with are the Record Labels that provide you with free legal music via Whitelabel.net, and even then they will only receive data about you if choose a preference allowing them to do so AND they will only see data about the music that they've given you in the first place.

Any questions? As always, we want your feedback.

We will post up a full Playlists Privacy Policy before we release Scratch Live 2.0.

wow! I like it.

Amazing stuff. Hats off!

First off, thank you Dave for stepping up and disclosing something that I am sure that you didn't want released yet. Hopefully, with the facts out there, as opposed to the beginning of the rumors, certain things already said in this thread, and other places on the web, can now be thrown in the trashcan.

As to the new features you just announced...very interesting and I can see some possibilities.

1) can we have code (or a button with a http option maybe) provided to us for placing our "live playlists" to our own websites as well?

2) How will music that is not from Whitelabel be counted...we all have our own way of adding things, seems like a big mess ahead coming for you guys.

I am sure that others will have more questions...but once again, thanks for the information!!

We have lots of ideas for how this information could be used and that's certainly one of them. The initial focus will be to get the core technology sorted then we'll looking at ways of extending the functionality.


Yeah, that's going to be fun for sure :-)

Ah, good thinking. We've been thinking lots about "twittering dat" but its not really suited to twitter. Our experimentation with Live Playlists on Serato.com has been cool, new tunes pop in while you're playing...


Do you mean be counted towards the Charts? That's the only place where non-Whitelabel plays are counted.

Chris - Jinx.

my radio show listeners are going to love this!

You're kidding right????

THAT'S THE WAY IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!!!!

Record companies GIVE the songs to radio stations "For Promotional Purposes Only".

Anything else is PAYOLA.

See? This is how backwards the game is. DJ's don't REALLY know their jobs.

Your job as a DJ is to PLAY and PROMOTE the song via Radio Station or Club.

You aren't even (legally) allowed to make MIX CD's and SELL nor GIVE them away with copyrighted material on them...

/END TANGENT

Thanks for the info guys - I understand why you are treading lightly with this stuff. Sounds like a good feature to me.

my hats off to you dave.......and more so to Audio1 for coming up with a creative and original way to force the good folks at serato to disclose top secret info on upcoming products!! LOL ....now all we need is a thread accusing rane of making a mixer thats in cahoots with the riaa

damn how did word break december 6 about that? ssl 2.0 features on a non serato certified forum.. someones been talking

Actually I do know this is how it SHOULD be. But the radio game has evolved along with the music industry...and it hasn't evolved in a good way...

I am glad someone from Serato stepped up and explained. You knew it wasn't gonna be fast....but thats pretty good timing...

You are exactly right. But the truth is that it MAY help reinvent the DJ game.

Imagine ONLY LEGIT DJ's getting "DJ Licenses", and the only ones being able to DJ in public places....

Those who are TRULY in the game, will rise to the top, all your "Undercutters" and "Freejays", will fall to the way side.

***Ding - Microwave is finished****

Look at the big picture.

To me this doesn´t fit with Scratch Live´s product philosophy.
It is simply an unnessacy, bloating, useless feature.
Serato can then more easily sell their Whitelabel service to the labels but the users won´t really profit from it.
Furthermore it shows disrept to much more important and long time requested features.

Seriously, thumbs down!

As far as the bloat the code for history exporting is already in place their just adding code to shoot that already exisiting text out to the net (minimal bloat), if anyting their bloating the website and servers. The happier the labels are with the whitelabel service the more\ and hopefully better tracks will be sent by the labels, which equals more free high quality music for serato users.....that sounds like a benefit to me

The only thing that does concern me with this feature is I would guess there are more microwave\freejay\bedroom\jackass DJs (such as myslef lol) who purchase SL (or any DVS) than high quality DJs, so lets just say im right on that assumption and some hugley garbage track is released that bedroom DJs and eat up the charts will reflect it as a hit even though it may get no play in clubs or in real places where people have access to better music or arent just using the tracks to learn to beatmatch.

It does, if your living in the states ;-).



I am not a programmer but I do have common sense and if a feature is useless, even though the code added is just "minimal" it is still bloating.

Users won´t beneftit from charts. It won´t replace digging for music. Whoever depends on charts needs the usual TOP40 charts. That´s it.

This feature is even more useless since you can´t publish your playlist on Twitter.

Good point.

Hey Mojo,

Good to hear your concerns.

First up M.Bezzle is right about the bloat, there isn't much additional code in Scratch Live for Playlists, Playlists is a web feature.

We have different development teams here at Serato. The C++ devs who make Scratch Live etc won't let the Web devs touch their code. And the Web devs won't let the C++ devs touch their code, ha. So, creating Playlists wasn't a case of taking other features away from Scratch Live.


Exactly.


Why's that? As I mentioned above we have been thinking lots about integration with twitter and it's still a possibility.


For each Playlist you choose to export you can say whether it's was played in a Club, at a Festival, on the Radio, or your Studio (Bedroom/Basement/ha), etc. That way we can have Serato Club DJ Charts which will reflect what is being played in clubs. Time will tell whether that includes "garbage" or not.

ps Mojo we are working really hard on getting Worldwide delivery for the labels who can currently only deliver to the US using Whitelabel.net. Hold tight, it will happen.

Your probably right, the only way i can see this helping is if theres a reigonal or underground track thats not really on the radio or buzzing on a national level it would be cool to be able to look at the charts and see it building steam and jump on it before its known in your reigon, the only think is for it to be ligitimate it would be nice if the charts were somehow weighted or documented on what kind of gig it was so some local kid dosent get nationwide attn off a wack song cause all his homies play it in their room all night

That could be cool for helping touring DJs see whats poppin in areas they havent really been to yet

+1000 great idea, that makes it alot more ligitamate, sure youll stull have duechebags claiming their spinning at some huge club in vegas but for the most part i think this will give a fair representation of whats hot where

That's a good point.

It's easy to think that a bunch of people could conspire together and game the system but in practice this is actually very hard. The vast majority of people tend to use these sorts of features exactly as they were intended and they will always statistically overwhelm the fiddlers.

Boy, I sure opened a BIG can of worms on this one. I apologize, I didnt really mean for 2.0 info to be leaked out. I was more concerned about privacy issues. We are already under a big microscope from big brother, The last thing I want to see spoiled by my government is my DJing, esp. thru my preffered DVS solution.

Same.

It's one feature. There are plenty more to surprise you all :-)


Fair enough too - we should all be concerned about privacy issues. Our biggest concerns surrounding Playlists, without a doubt, have been the privacy implications.

But we think we've got you covered. If anyone has any doubts then I would suggest that you hold your thoughts until we make the Privacy and Terms and Conditions documents available (they'll be online soon).

We've thought A LOT about this functionality and we're expecting a barrage of questions from you guys. We're confident that we'll have answers to all of your concerns but you're welcome to try and prove us wrong :-)

I heard there was a serato ableton colaboration which led to a feature in 2.0 which in some way violates my civil rights can you elaborate on this feature so i know im safe ;) LOL

Will you guys be sharing our personal information such our names with the record labels or just the tracks that we play?

Labels will only have access to information that's relevant to them - things such as your DJ name and geographical location (country and city). This will be explained fully in the Privacy document.

But I want to constantly re-iterate a very important part of Playlist label reporting: labels will only be able to see what Whitelabel tracks you've played, and only if you select a preference allowing them to do so.

.. and only if you choose to use Playlists at all. This is an optional feature.

I hope people understand that this is an optional feature cause it sounds like they are frekaing out already...

I bet the others will surprise me in a more positive way.

Mr.Beezle, you are a trip! :-)

Woot woot!!!!!!

Best news Ive heard in ages!!!!

April Fools?

Next question, when will SSL 2.0 be released? at NAMM?

I wonder if there will be a BETA or will the hardware RANE has planned be required

I'm also wondering if the free upgrades carry over form 1.x to 2.x...

I think it will always be free, since its hardware activated. I really wish sometimes though that we could test a mix without it plugged.

fyi fellas this has been a great thread...

my 2 cents, in my immediate area (Northeast PA) the dj hasn't broken a record here in years unless he has stepped on it. People dont care if you have a hit a month early. they dont know shit about music or if its good unless its on radio (btw dj's here are not real dj's) for example, when i got JT's sexyback damn near 2 weeks before local radio, i played it and no one cared. then it was on the radio and i got 20 requests for it. the same scenario has played out over and over. i dont even care anymore about getting new stuff because my area is ass backwards. i wait till someone requests it then i get it.

as for this posting play lists, this sounds great! i'd love to see what is hitting in different areas, and it could only help everyone find more good music to play across the board. for instance, if you were to skim a bunch of playlists from new England djs and they all had played one track say a guy in the midwest maybe never heard it could help him bring that tune to some new people. (so i think the regional lists would be great).

yes :)

very good news

very good news is an under statement!

very VERY good news?

great read all... good post alex!... serato and rane guys/gals... ill see you in anahiem!

The ASCAP issue with that club in Mobile has to do with playing ASCAP-authored works in public. This is specifically the "performance license". Every place in the US that plays commercial music to the public, legally, has a license agreement with ASCAP/BMI/SESAC. This is a license that the venue holds, it's usually priced based on entertainment budget or revenues derived from entertainment. It's a good chunk of change. ASCAP polices this LIKE CRAZY! Their agents are literally everywhere, looking for places playing music that aren't licensed. The venue gets a few notices and then they are sued for copyright violation. These venue-held licenses are different from what you are paying for when you purchase music. The licenses you hold for the tracks that you've purchased are the "mechanical" licenses. Those authorize the copy.

I am not a lawyer and this shouldn't be taken as legal advice. Word!

-E

I am a lawyer (& a turntablist), but this shouldn't be taken as legal advice. I repeat, this should not be taken as legal advice.

However, Let's clear up a few things

1) With respect to downloading sites that have "permission" to post songs but it turns out they don't
- There is something called a bona fide purchasor, a legal term used since the dawn of man hunting foxes, where if you buy something (anything) and have no reason to know its stolen, or some cases illegal (note: ignorance of the LAW is different than ignorance of THE STATE OF THE PRODUCT) you are not liable when the true owner comes forward bitching like a little Jigga (See also Sean Carter, S Dot, Jay, Jay-Z)
- that is, maybe good news for a dj, maybe not so much for a club owner

2) With respect to playing live music(i.e. a dj)

According to the ASCAP website, this is the new law governing bars Public Law No. 105-298, which amended 17 U.S.C. 110(5)

The relevant part is this major exemption to paying for an ASCAP license - A food service or drinking establishment is eligible for the exemption if it (1) has less than 3750 gross square feet of space (in measuring the space, the amount of space used for customer parking only is always excludable); or (2) has 3750 gross square feet of space or more and (a) uses no more than 6 loudspeakers of which not more than 4 loudspeakers are located in any 1 room or adjoining outdoor space; and (b) if television sets are used, there are no more than 4 televisions, of which not more than 1 is located in any 1 room and none has a diagonal screen size greater than 55 inches.

3) THE MOST RELEVANT PART IN ANY LAWSUIT
- in the event the bar owner loses, Jay Z still has to prove DAMAGES. That is, what did playing Umbrella in a live atmosphere do to hurt Jay Z, or more importantly, the record company that owns the rights. Answer, nothing. Sales actually probably went up, and if you can't prove damages, all you get is a coke and a smile. :)

4) my opinion on the matter

- There is nothing illegal about playing music, whether you are a cover band or a dj, as long as you are not producing products (i.e. cds, tapes, records, mp3) and selling them, your live performance is your live performance, regardless of who originally recorded the track. What is illegal is when you sample a song, whether the actual song or your own replaying of the instrument, and don't pay the 9.5 cents per play (not sure if this is still the exact amount)

5) With respect to the club owner being sued
- See if your state has a statute similar to Massachusetts M.G.L. c. 93A which governs unfair and deceptive trade practices, and interference with contractual relationships. You might be able to use it to counter sue Jay for interfering w/ your relationship with your patrons and your djs(and on top of that, our statute allows you to sue for triple damages AND attorney's fees.....big money) Note - if you win on this count, don't worry about paying for my legal advice, but feel free to offer me a few djing spots every once in a while :)

6) with respect to Jay-Z
- "Don't be a douchebag" - See Jump Smokers, Don't Be A Douchebag

7) just like to reiterate that this should not be construed as legal advice, merely a ranting from a dj/lawyer, and I am a trial attorney, not an intellectual property attorney, so I am hardly an expert.

~ dj Esq.
~ www.urBOYS.com
~ holla@urBOYS.com

I bet that makes for an interesting busniess card

very good post sir, a great read!!!!

Stuff like this made me lol



well done. lol

funny but oh so true....

Can we have 2 lists for top played tracks "Europe vs US" so we can see what getting most plays each side of the pond

For those of you who are uber paranoid and want an extra level of 'opt out' you can configure rules based firewalls like Little Snitch (on the Mac) to deny Scratch Live network access.

Little Snitch is a great application!

Thanks for the tip!

Or, easier still, not use Playlists at all. It's entirely optional.

hahah!

lol awsome