Two men have been accused in the United States, of committing a million-dollar scam, by collecting royalties for the use of music that was not even their own.
The amount of the scam amounts to more than $ 20.7 million in copyright of music used on YouTube, whose royalties were collected over four years.
From April 2017 to at least April 30, 2021, the defendants, Webster Batista Fernandez and Jose Teran, managed to monetize more than 50,000 music tracks used in YouTube videos, without owning the rights to any of them.
The men presented, before YouTube and an intermediary company identified as AR – the entity that manages and issues payments to those who claim music on YouTube -, false documentation that endorsed that they were the owners of the music and they were entitled to collect royalties for their use on the video platform.
Thus, they managed to convince both YouTube and AR representatives of their possession of the rights to the tracks, and illegally monetize them for four years.
Who are the scammers and how did they carry out the scam?
Batista is a citizen of the Dominican Republic, President of Musika LLC, CEO of MediaMuv LLC and member and legal agent of Elegre Records LLC. Teran is a resident of Arizona, a registered agent of Musika Inc LLC, agent of VA Music Inc (member of MediaMuv LLC) and owner of MuveMusic LLC.
MediaMuv was the company through which the scammers entered into the contract with the AR company, in which MediaMuv claimed to be the “writer, author, publisher, copyright holder and creator” of a huge library of musical works. The company also assured that it would not violate the rights of third parties in any way, declared his own music library of over 50,000 tracks and uploaded it to YouTube.
Thus, AR was in charge of enforcing MediaMuv’s content claims on YouTube and paying the corresponding royalties, which over four years amounted to $ 20,776,517.31, while the actual creators of the tracks got absolutely nothing.
Now that they have been discovered, Batista and Terán are charged with thirty counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering and aggravated identity theft..
The accusation against him It also seeks to have all the assets they obtained with the fraud money confiscated., including a property in Phoenix, Arizona, of about $ 546,000; money from two bank accounts; a $ 130,000 Tesla; a BMW i8, worth more than $ 92,000; and about $ 62,500 worth of jewelry.