Help for a Disc Jockey

[HunterDJ]

What is the name of your state?What is the name of your state? Iowa

I am a mobile Disc Jockey and I have a question regarding if there is such a thing as "unfair competition" against companies that are all breaking the law and profiting from it. I have had other DJ's slander my name and my business to potential clients and also on a local wedding message board because they all literally want to force me out of business.

Due to these DJ's not legally purchasing music they can charge half the cost of what I charge and in many cases they charge even less than that. I have been in direct contact with the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and sent them proof of what the other DJ's are illegally doing and the RIAA have confirmed that they are breaking the law but they "do not have the money or manpower to go after these DJ's". I have also been in contact with the record labels also and they just keep saying that they forwarded it to someone else that will get back in touch with me and they never do. The record labels also tell me to contact the RIAA because that is the "RIAA's job" and have all of the emails that I have sent to EVERYONE as proof to get something done.

Please understand I am not out to ruin these DJ's but I am in a lose - lose situation when they do this and also they slander my name around then I am obviously losing jobs as a result. As a matter of fact I lost a booking for this past Saturday due to the stupidity of the DJ that posed as me on the wedding message board (Yes, I do know who the DJ was).

What I want to know is
1. Is there anything that can be done against the DJ's that are breaking the law and unfairly competing against myself?
2. Can anything be done against the DJ that acted as myself and totally hurt my business since I basically stopped receiving any inquiries since this happened?
3. What would you do in my situation since I am at a major loss (especially financially) due to all of what is going on?


Thank you and any help would be appreciated.

 

[Dandy Don]

Talk to a lawyer now to figure out the best options. Your professional reputation is being damaged and you need to act now to get them to stop.

Your lawyer (or yourself) can send a threatening letter to the webmaster of the website--and to the offending DJ's--and that will take care of an improper posting (usually they will remove it without much further action needed). But quit worrying about the website posting since that is not where most of your potential clients would be coming from.

Your posting is unclear because you have not stated EXACTLY what these DJ's have done, regarding the MUSIC, that you say is illegal or improper.

 

[HunterDJ]

Thank you for your response Dandy Don,

The situation on the wedding website occured while I was away on vacation and the "DJ" was a "friend" at the time that basicially screwed me over to help his own business. As soon as I got home from vacation and received an angry phone call from the client from this past weekend that cancelled on me and I contacted the website webmaster instantly. The webmaster took the posts off the website before I got to see them and she let me at least post a message to defend myself but obviously that didn't help. The "friend" that did this I also confronted him and his other friend that worked together to pose as me and I contacted them and with no response from them to deny that they didn't do it pretty much admitted that they did it.

Also the DJ that posed as me on the wedding website SPECIFICALLY hurt my business more than ever because I used to get more than 20 - 30 contacts a week directly from this site so YES it did affect my business more than anyone will ever know. As for what I am speaking about with the other DJ's being "illegal" is everyone knows that the RIAA is going after individuals that are illegally downloading and also pirating music but they pretty much refuse to go after DJ's that are doing the same thing as other individuals (Non Disc Jockeys). I have proof of DJ's doing the following


1. Buying one CD and burning off multiple copies for the other DJ rigs that they rent out.
2. Transferring their CD's and vinyl records to a laptop or CD-R which I am pretty sure is a copyright infringment since they are transferring from one format to another.
3. Creating video and picture presentations and putting popular music on the clip without paying for the royalties of the song.
4. Selling / giving away CD-R's with songs on them to brides and grooms and various other clients. If this was legal then I think every DJ would be doing this.


This is just some of this things that these DJ's are doing and as I said I can't compete with illegal.

TRUE EXAMPLE OF WHAT IS GOING ON:

Let's say you are looking to hire a DJ for a wedding reception and you call around and I charge XXX.00 and offer a bigger light show, more gear including backup gear, over 13,000 songs brought to the event (21,000 the client has access to), full planning plus other various things and services that I offer my clients for one price. THEN you call another DJ and this DJ badmouths me (this is according to what people are telling me when they speak to me) and says they can charge $250 - $500 LESS than my price and they can say they have as many songs as I do since all their music is downloaded (ie. THEY DID NOT PAY FOR THEIR MUSIC). Obviously if they do not pay for their music then they can charge less than I can and how can I compete because all of these DJ's can use the price as a leverage plus they can offer the other illegal services to make themselves look more "professional" and make it worth hiring them over my service.

What I mean by other illegal services is giving away music on CD-R or creating a video DVD and adding music to it without paying for the royalties and of course these DJ's are not going to tell their clients the truth that the CD's and videos are not legal.

I do want to mention one more thing. I tried to start a local DJ network and I invited EVERY DJ IN THE AREA and only had a handful of 9-10 DJ's show up just to get everone on the same page. We had two meetings and couldn't get past the situation of other DJ's calling other DJ's illegal when they are ALL illegally breaking the law and they know they are. I figured I would give the local network a chance to "teach" the others but instead all that happened was I basically made more DJ's angry with me after they found out I was in contact with the RIAA. I know the laws about what DJ's can and can't do with music and even gave these DJ's a CD-Rom with the laws and rules designed by the RIAA and the record labels.

As you can see it is an all around unfair situation and I personally am not even sure if hiring a lawyer would be financially worth it or would I be out more money than I am out now?

 

[Dandy Don]

If I were you, I would at least talk to/consult a libel attorney to figure out what your options might be, other than suing, to get the other parties to stop what they are doing.

 

[HunterDJ]

Thanks again for your reply Dandy Don.

I have contacted several lawyers and NONE OF THEM will even contact me back. I have even sent proof of what is going on and still no response. In the area where I live the "illegal activity" of disc jockey's is out of control and I truly feel that the lawyers don't even want to deal with it let alone deal with contacting the Recording Industry Association of America.

I guess one of the things that I would love to know from any lawyer is there a case against illegal DJ's that are illegally running their business? For example I am in direct email & phone contact with RIAA representatives and the main illegal activities that disc jockeys are doing is the following:

• 
  [1]Downloading illegal music from the internet (online pay sites are included)
  using a laptop (or computer) to DJ
  [2]making copies of music for multiple DJ rigs
  [3]creating a DVD or VHS video with music that is not licensed
  [4]selling or giving away music CD's (Burned CD-R's with music on them)

The reason why the above actions are illegal is
[1] DJ's can't use music that is downloaded from the internet (Music purchased on online paysites are not legal to use for any public events that DJ's perform at). DJ's cannot transfer music to any other form of media without permission from the copyright holder (usually the songwriter, artist or label)
[2] Once again a DJ MUST purchase music for each and every rig that is used and they can't make copies to use.
[3] Creating video projects that are sold by disc jockeys are not itself illegal but once there is popular music added then the video is then technically illegal to sell unless the creator (DJ) has permission from the copyright holder unless the music that is added is royalty free music.
[4] DJ's can't give or sell music CD-R's to clients without paying the royalties and licenses to do it.

How are these 4 situations affecting my business is simple... I can't offer an illegal service such as selling music CD-R's, creating video slideshows (with music) and compete with truly illegal services that are charging half of what I charge to operate my business. I know it would be a major case of "UNFAIR COMPETITION" but in this area there are no lawyers that handle this type of situation. The RIAA does indeed admit that the DJ's that offer these service or do the things stated above are truly breaking the law but they won't do anything about it.

If anyone has any other suggestions I would gladly listen. And thanks again Dandy Don for your help.