Jose Teran and his partner falsely claimed to own or control “over 50,000 songs,” including some recorded by Daddy Yankee, Julio Iglesias, Anuel AA, Prince Royce and Don Omar.
Under the name MediaMuv, Teran and Batista signed a contract with YouTube to use its content management system , which rights holders use to claim copyright ownership and the ensuing royalties. “We falsely claimed that MediaMuv owned over 50,000 songs and further sought access to YouTube’s CMS in order to obtain royalty payments for these songs,” Teran said in his plea.
Sources who work closely with the platform say YouTube scammers typically just claim small fractions of songs they suspect have not been claimed properly and might go unnoticed. This is especially common on the publishing side, where some compositions have so many songwriters that ownership and royalties are far more complicated than they are for recordings. But MediaMuv often claimed 100% of royalties for master recordings or compositions.
The plea deals also say the duo did not act alone. Both mention that they hired “over five co-conspirators” to help them find new music to fraudulently claim and, in return, those co-conspirators were paid “a portion of [MediaMuv’s] royalties.
The house she purchased, along with six bank accounts, a Tesla, a BMW and a plot of land, are all listed in Teran and Batistas’ plea deals as items they agree to forfeit. Though the duo is ordered to “make restitution to any victim” of their crimes, one of the businessmen who represented multiple MediaMuv victims toldin August he doesn’t “expect to get it all back. I’m sure they spent a lot of it on cars and travel and stuff.”a spokesman for Downtown Music Holdings says the company is “pleased by the latest developments in the MediaMuv criminal case, as both defendants have now pleaded guilty and admitted their role in this complex fraud scheme.
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