YouTube scammer who stole millions in song royalties sentenced to 5 years

[guilder]

Excerpt:

"Starting in 2017, Batista and Teran created a record label known as MediaMuv to seize unearned royalties by claiming ownership of songs on YouTube. According to the sentencing memo, they did this by hiring as many as eight employees and searching YouTube "for recorded songs that were not actively monetized."

Once they knew what songs were vulnerable, MediaMuv manipulated YouTube's system that pays music rights holders."

YouTube scammer who stole millions in song royalties sentenced to 5 years

YouTube scammer aggressively defended fake rights to 50,000 songs over 5 years.

arstechnica.com

Click to read more...

 

[bcslaam]

Thanks for alerting us to this. What utter evil assholes that bunch of scammers are.

And why does YouTube restrict access to those monitoring tools? And why was that case dismissed?

We should tag this post and share our experiences here ongoingly. The best way is to team up against this scam, if we are being scammed.

 

[jcrosby]

Sadly this is something that has been happening for years. Content ID is a copyright minefield. It's the 1st I've heard of someone being prosecuted for it however... I'd hope this is something that happens more frequently, it's long overdue...

 

[Daryl]

A few months ago an American company based out of Florida claimed ownership of a number of our tracks, even though they were already registered, and money was claimed from, youTube, which we never got back. It seems that there are companies set up precisely to steal from others.

 

[José Herring]

I don't necessarily believe in the death penalty for criminals but never say never.

What a bunch of scumbags.

 

[Daryl]

Interestingly AdRev is mentioned in the article. We had a terrible time getting anything out of them, except for denials. We have since dumped them, and are now with Songtradr

 

[Paul@Sydney]

When will intellectual property start getting the same level of legal rigour that real estate gets? People can't just rock up and claim land as their own that they don't have rights to. Why isn't something as tangible as a song or a master recording protected in the same way?

 

[Daryl]

When will intellectual property start getting the same level of legal rigour that real estate gets? People can't just rock up and claim land as their own that they don't have rights to. Why isn't something as tangible as a song or a master recording protected in the same way?

It is. It's just that it's much more difficult to police, as it's seen as intangible.

 

[danevaz]

Also see the Billboard article.

How Did Two Unknown Latin Music Operators Make $23 Million From YouTube? The IRS Says They Stole It

Inside the brazen but surprisingly simple scheme that took royalties from songs by artists like Daddy Yankee, Anuel AA, Julio Iglesias and more.

www.billboard.com

 

[J-M]

Good riddance.

 

[nolotrippen]

Only five years?

 

[Kyle Preston]

IRS for the win!