Ill-gotten never profit. This is what two American cronies learned who had hijacked YouTube’s redistribution system for their benefit. By claiming authorship of works by little-known artists, they managed to raise no less than $23 million. Justice has caught up with them, and they face up to 70 months in prison.
The case dates back to 2021, when Webster Batista and Jose Teran found a way to trick Content ID, the system for identifying and managing protected content on YouTube. Their trick was to look for songs by artists, mostly Latin music, not yet recorded on YouTube, put them online on the video sharing service, then claim the rights.
The more than 50,000 songs made available on YouTube have received millions of hits, which has helped them amass more than 23 million dollars in royalties in four years of activity. The small business proved so lucrative that it quickly grew. MM. Teran and Batista have thus recruited up to eight employees to accelerate the search for tracks not yet “monetized”. The success of their fraudulent business was such that it was officially registered as a YouTube Content ID Trusted Partner.
They earn $23 million on YouTube by improperly claiming the rights to thousands of songs
However, this label did not protect the two friends from justice once the real rights holders noticed the deception. In the lawsuit brought against them by the US Department of Justice, Mr. Teran, 38, and Mr. Batista Fernandez have already confessed their wrongdoing and pleaded guilty. They face a 70-month prison sentence for illegally posing as the rights holders of the songs.
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The instigator of this fraud, Mr. Teran would have enriched himself with “6 million $ which enabled him to support a lavish lifestyle. Faced with the damage caused by Mr. Teran and the exorbitant profits he has made, a significant penalty is warranted to deter such behavior in the future “.