US Seeks 70-Month Prison Sentence For YouTube Content ID Scammer (torrentfreak.com) 47
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: By pretending to be legitimate music rightsholders, two men managed to extract over $23 million in revenue from YouTube's content-ID system. Both were arrested, pleaded guilty (PDF), and now face multi-year prison terms. This week, the U.S. requested a 70-month sentence against the 'number two' of the operation, in part to deter future fraud. [...] Last year, one of the defendants confessed to his part in the copyright swindle by pleading guilty. Webster Batista admitted it was a simple scheme: find Latin American music that wasn't yet monetized on YouTube and claim the content as their own. In February of this year, the second defendant pleaded guilty. Jose Teran signed a plea agreement admitting that he was part of the conspiracy, engaging in wire fraud and money laundering.
The Content ID scam was straightforward, Teran's plea agreement revealed. The defendants simply identified unmonetized music and uploaded those songs to YouTube. [W]e discovered there were recorded songs of musicians and bands on the internet that were not being monetized. We began searching and downloading these songs. Once songs were downloaded, Batista would then upload them to Y.T. as mp3 files." "We falsely claimed legal ownership over these songs to receive royalty payments," Teran adds, noting that the scheme brought in millions. To collect these payments Batista launched the company MediaMuv, which became a trusted YouTube Content ID member through a third-party company referred to by the initials A.R. As the scheme grew, more employees were hired and tasked with finding more unmonetized tracks.
Despite pleading guilty, both defendants face a multi-year stint in prison. Teran will be the first to be sentenced and this week, the defendant and the prosecution announced their respective positions. According to the defense, Teran wasn't the lead of the operation. As an aspiring musician he looked up to his co-defendant, who is portrayed as the brains behind the operation. [...] Teran and Batista at one point had between five and eight people working for them. These employees used special software to find unmonetized music which they would then add to their catalog, to exploit YouTube's Content ID system. "Defendant, Jose Teran, engaged in a concerted effort -- over nearly five years -- to steal royalty proceeds from approximately 50,000 song titles, causing a loss of more than $23,000,000.00," the prosecution writes (PDF). "A 70-month sentence is undoubtedly substantial but given Mr. Teran's conduct and the need to deter future fraud, it is entirely warranted," the Government's sentencing memorandum concludes.
The Content ID scam was straightforward, Teran's plea agreement revealed. The defendants simply identified unmonetized music and uploaded those songs to YouTube. [W]e discovered there were recorded songs of musicians and bands on the internet that were not being monetized. We began searching and downloading these songs. Once songs were downloaded, Batista would then upload them to Y.T. as mp3 files." "We falsely claimed legal ownership over these songs to receive royalty payments," Teran adds, noting that the scheme brought in millions. To collect these payments Batista launched the company MediaMuv, which became a trusted YouTube Content ID member through a third-party company referred to by the initials A.R. As the scheme grew, more employees were hired and tasked with finding more unmonetized tracks.
Despite pleading guilty, both defendants face a multi-year stint in prison. Teran will be the first to be sentenced and this week, the defendant and the prosecution announced their respective positions. According to the defense, Teran wasn't the lead of the operation. As an aspiring musician he looked up to his co-defendant, who is portrayed as the brains behind the operation. [...] Teran and Batista at one point had between five and eight people working for them. These employees used special software to find unmonetized music which they would then add to their catalog, to exploit YouTube's Content ID system. "Defendant, Jose Teran, engaged in a concerted effort -- over nearly five years -- to steal royalty proceeds from approximately 50,000 song titles, causing a loss of more than $23,000,000.00," the prosecution writes (PDF). "A 70-month sentence is undoubtedly substantial but given Mr. Teran's conduct and the need to deter future fraud, it is entirely warranted," the Government's sentencing memorandum concludes.
70 months in the slammer for YouTube shenanigans? (Score:5, Funny)
This week, the U.S. requested a 70-month sentence against the 'number two' of the operation, in part to deter future fraud.
Well, that's back to hire killing for me. It's a much less risky line of crime.
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I wasn't thinking in terms of number of years rather than risk / payout ratio. If you try to scam Google, you're certain to lose. If you're a contract killer and you're not too stupid, I imagine your odds of being caught aren't as great and you're paid more.
Re: 70 months in the slammer for YouTube shenaniga (Score:1)
Not bad (Score:2)
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The operation took in $23M, it was divided among 5-8 people over a number of years. So the proper calculation looks something like this:
($23M - any restitution ordered by the court / between 5-8 people ) /( 60 months of criminal activity + 70 months incarceration) = monthly income over the life of this crime and prison term
The money was collected over 5 years (60 months), and they'll spend 70 month in jail, so the returns are spread out over 130 months.
The group had up to 8 participants at various points in
Unmonetized music (Score:5, Funny)
What is "unmonetized music"? Is it possible that the creators/owners of some music might not want it to be monetized?
Like the religious chants of some tribe that would consider profit-making using their works to be sacrilege. And who might vow to behead any transgressors in order to protect their cultures honor?
Re:Unmonetized music (Score:5, Informative)
Unmonetized music is music where the rights holders, for whatever reason, never alerted YouTube to the music they hold rights to, so YouTube never had an entity to send royalties to when their music was included in various YouTube submissions.
I don't think it's possible for rights holders to collect "back royalties" so the theft was from YouTube, not the legal rights holders that never bothered to assert their ownership/rights over their music.
Let's say I held the legal rights to a song, let's say "the birthday song"
I'm not aware that YouTube is paying royalties when copyrighted music is identified I. In a YouTube video, so I never tell them about my ownership of "the birthday song" - making "the birthday song" unmonitored.
You, realizing "the birthday song" has not been monetized, you falsely claim you own the rights to this song, so youtube pays you royalties.
This goes on for 5 years, I'm blissfully ignorant, and you are cashing checks from youtube.
Then one day, I read a story about youtube monetizing music included in youtube videos, and I reach out and tell youtube about my ownership rights over "the birthday song" and they tell me someone else owns it.
I challenge the other claim and emerge victorious, youtube starts sending me royalties for "the birthday song" into the future. YouTube owes me nothing as far as "back royalties" go, my case is against the scammers that falsely claimed to hold the rights to "the birthday song"... but good luck collecting after the government takes everything left from the scammers as a penalty.
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so YouTube never had an entity to send royalties to when their music was included in various YouTube submissions.
We're playing YouTube's game here. How about YouTube just not collect royalties for stuff that the provable rights holders have not expressed a desire that they (YouTube) represent them. Furthermore, YT should just delete the content from their system until a provable right can be demonstrated.
It's like a record company shows up at your performance of "the birthday song", records it, cuts an album and distributes it to record stores. Then they tell you that you can have your cut, but they are going to go o
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I have uploaded old video clips from a band that were not previously on YouTube. I chose not to monetize them because the clips aren’t mine and I don’t want people to be subjected to commercials for a low quality 240p video.
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cool copyright infringement story, bro. it's not your performance so you cannot be the decision maker of monetization
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When you upload a video to your youtube account, it is effortless to tick the checkbox where you state you are the copyright holder, and tick the checkbox to enable monetization.
What isn't effortless is getting the 1,000 subscribers and 240,000 watch minutes per year needed to qualify for monetization in the first place.
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what op did was create a performance which the original content owner did not consent to. regardless of monetization, uploading the video to youtube violates the band's copyright and creates a copyright infringement case. sorry bro, you are in the wrong here.
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How will I ever sleep at night knowing this?
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You probably will sleep just fine. Similarly, I have no problem picking pockets of random pedestrians or picking the locks of random neighbors doors to commit petty larceny. You gotta do what you gotta do.
Injustice! (Score:2)
Despite pleading guilty, both defendants face a multi-year stint in prison.
Savages!
There go those evil USians again, imprisoning people just because they are guilty and stuff.
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Despite pleading guilty, both defendants face a multi-year stint in prison.
Because pleading guilty is typically a way to avoid "multi-year" prison terms?
Teran and Batista at one point had between five and eight people working for them.
How does that work? At every point in the 'operation' they had a single number of employees, perhaps the anonymous poster of this story meant "...at various points had between five and eight employees"?
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Between five and eight is indeed a single-digit number of employees. (At least in the decimal system used by most cultures that count.)
They are all SCAMs (Score:3)
Even the legit ones.
Re:What about Google? (Score:4, Insightful)
Google (YouTube) is an accessory to a LEGAL racketeering scheme. So no.
What those dudes did was try to rob the mafia. That never ends well. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did to be honest.
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No one is claiming these fellows sent out takedown notices, they simply told YouTube that they owned the rights to music contained in YouTube videos, and as a cost of doing business, YouTube paid them a royalty/license fee.
Takedown notices are designed to remove music from YouTube, that's the opposite of what these fellows wanted.
Soo (Score:4, Insightful)
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Google was making money off of unauthorized work the whole time.
So it was bad that the guys going to jail made money off work that they werent authorized to make money off of, but Google/Youtube made even more money than those guys did off those very same unauthorized copyright violating presentations.
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Consider the way that Kim DotCom has been relentlessly persecuted for all these years.
For committing the crime(s) he did? Let's hope so.
Then again, he might be able to use an insanity defense [twitter.com].
Not that I support the current CRAPPY Content ID.. (Score:4, Interesting)
But wait wait wait wait. Let me get this right.
YouTube (and others) know when songs have NOT been monetized. That is, works of art that belongs to the original creator. By the original law, that content belongs to them.
YouTube knowing PERMITS others to register these works. They then pay those people for the works of art that actually belongs to someone else.
This defect in the software was exploited by some random dude.
And now they're all butthurt and want to DETER others from exploiting this obvious defect in the software.
Do I have this right?
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Knowing something has not been monetized != knowing who the legitimate rightsholder is. If someone claims to be the rightsholder for a work that nobody has previously claimed, Youtube doesn't know they're lying.
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Which youtube employee is going into the slammer for their part in monetizing a work that shouldnt have been?
Is the crime that youtube didnt get keep all the illegal proceeds?
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If you have evidene that some particular employee was aware that these were not in fact legitimate rightsholders, feel free to pass the evidence along to the prosecutor.
However I would not be at all surprised if the entire thing was handled on Youtube's side by automated processes.
And there's the problem... (Score:4, Insightful)
"To collect these payments Batista launched the company MediaMuv, which became a trusted YouTube Content ID member through a third-party company referred to by the initials A.R. "
And there's the problem... "became a trusted YouTube Content ID member" while he was an active scammer/criminal, being supported by Youtube.
Terran Barista (Score:3)
As a starcraft kid of the 90s, All I can see is something about a Terran Barista. Maybe working at an output not yet overran by the Zerg.
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Should have joined the RIAA (Score:1)
Then it would all have been legal theft.
copyright swindle (Score:2)
What were they charged with?
Just says "copyright swindle " or "Content ID scam"? Is that a creative term or an actual thing?
Wire fraud (Score:3)
The perps pleaded guilty to having misrepresented to YouTube that they represented the owner of copyright in particular recordings or music compositions. See the Wikipedia articles "Slander of title" [wikipedia.org] and "Copyfraud" [wikipedia.org] for other examples of this sort of behavior. As for the actual charges, the summary links to a PDF of a guilty plea to conspiracy, wire fraud, and transactional money laundering.
So about that... (Score:2)
What remedy will YouTube provide for people that improperly received content strikes for this malfeasance?
None whatsoever? Got it. Thanks.
Not for the artists (Score:2)
Remember, Youtube wasn't going to give this money to the artists: They were going to keep it, so the artists didn't lose $23 million, YouTube did. Let's remember that YouTube also keeps all royalties while there is an ownership dispute: The original artists do lose money but the FBI isn't worried about that.
Fraud? Yes. Cause a loss???? (Score:2)
I mean sure, they didn't own the rights that they claimed, so weren't entitled to the proceeds. But, no one else was claiming the proceeds either, so I don't really see how this was a loss to anybody except those who weren't claiming their rights in the first place. The reality the original musicians could have monetized, but they didn't.
Sure, there was a crime committed, but not nearly what TFA claims.