Crook who stole $23m+ in YouTube song royalties gets five years behind bars One of the two men who admitted stealing more than $23 million in royalty payments for songs played on YouTube has been sentenced to nearly six years behind bars for his role in what prosecutors called "one of the largest music-royalty frauds ever." Jose Teran, 38, of Scottsdale, Arizona, was sent down for 70 months by a US …
Because he intends to work in the music industry, and the incentive for fraud remains the same as the incentive for everybody else in the music industry.
In fact, lock up everybody in the music industry who isn't rich, because the incentive for fraud is strong.
In fact, lock up everybody who isn't rich, because they might commit crimes in the future.
Or, alternatively, lock up prosecutors who write crap like that.
The man continued to perpetuate his scam even after being arrested and indicted.
That and his statements about continuing to work in the music industry show he has no remorse and intends to continue scamming musicians, Google and the public in the future.
The prosecutors are right.
@tmTM
Yeah, silly greed move on their part, by the sound of it there were plenty of non monetized music works out there, so when legit creators complained their rights were being infringed the sensible move would have not been to antagonise them but to cut some kind of deal and so keep under the radar: Especially when plenty of companies out there that trade in rights to music, the crim could have easily lied & said they in good faith purchased rights from some third party who claimed to be the rights holder. Shafting the legit music authors who noticed they were being shafted was bound to eventually be their downfall.
US$20+M / 5 years ~= US$4+M per year. Prison is -- presumably (was he sentenced to a "white collar" prison?) -- a bad place to live, but that "salary" is a great one, although you can't spend it extravagantly, or you run the risk of the taxman coming after you for not having reported all your income, which probably will lead to fines and more jail time ...
I'm not sure how it works with the US justice system, but in the UK the courts can seize your assets if they were deemed to be proceeds of crime. In fact the onus is on the defendant to prove any money, property etc are legitimately earned and not from criminal activity in such cases. Not for the court to to prove its from crimes. They can even seize it from 3rd parties such as friend and relatives if you give them ill gotten gains to try and keep it out of the hands of the authorities.
> There's no mention in the story of any of it being clawed back...
That comes later? Read the Sentencing Memo referred in the story paragraph 4, see page 4 footnote 3.
The government requests that the Court set a restitution hearing to determine an appropriate restitution amount. The PSR set restitution in the amount of $1,464,717.90. (PSR at 24–25). The government is actively working to obtain information from other victims, which is a substantial undertaking because the majority of victims reside outside of the United States. The government has recently expanded its notification efforts to include Spanish-language notifications and is further widening its public outreach. A future restitution hearing would afford sufficient time for additional victims involved in this case to come forward.
It does seem like the suggested $1.4M is less than the $23M given in elReg's headline.
FWIW: we just came across some published writing by my father we never knew about; that he has forgotten. If somebody is selling it, we would never have known.
"There's no mention in the story of any of it being clawed back or of how much was left to claw back after the obligatory "lavish lifestyle"."
That's why I only rent my lavish mansions to criminals I've introduced to crime, and only have a "criminal lair" rental business.
And thus, the varyingly-successful attempts by criminals to hide their ill-gotten gains. If the coppers can't find it, they can't take it away from you. Though, if they slap a fine on you and you don't/can't pay it, you may end up in the pokey for that. Telling the beak, "The swag was in crypto-coins, and someone nicked me (electronic) wallet!" probably would fly as poorly as, "But Ms. Prunewaller, the dog ate my homework!"
American gangster Al Capone was not convicted of crimes of violence, but was convicted of tax evasion and he did jail time for that.
But you never were in the music business. You were in the fraud business, music was just the vehicle.
And I won't be surprised to learn, in a bit more than 6 years from now, that you got caught for fraud again (music business or otherwise). Easy money is an addiction. Once you get a taste of it, that taste is acquired.
Some people might be more predisposed than others.
So if he hadn't collected the royalty money, where would it have gone? Straight into the pockets of the streaming services, I guess. Not sure how the accountants would have hidden that as they won't want it to say "Royalties that weren't claimed, and we didn't try to deliver".
Maybe the streamers should refuse to play songs they don't have the royalty recipient of. Pretty sure they would find the royalty owners that way.
Non-monetized videos on YouTube don't run advertisements, generally, as I understand it. Once someone claims copyright and monetizes, or the author chooses to monetize, advertisements are added to the video, and those are revenue shared with the monetizing party.
At church we've had some services monetized by "rights holders" of hymns+arrangements written by Charles Wesley (who died in London in 1788 - even before Walt Disney!). These videos tend to get fewer post-service views as folks click away during the ads. I've considered fighting about it but haven't bothered, which I suppose is the ambivalence these fellows banked on.
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