As if it weren’t already hard enough for musicians to get paid for their work through legitimate licensing agreements, along comes this dynamic duo.
Two men have been indicted by the Department of Justice in Arizona for fraudulently collecting over $20 million in music royalties over the last five years. According to the indictment, Jose Teran of Arizona and Webster Batista of Florida held themselves out as having the right to license over 50,000 musical compositions and collecting the royalties on behalf of the artists. Not only did they not have this right, the actual owners of the compositions obviously never received any of the royalties. If found guilty, we can only hope the law takes their actions seriously and they do not walk away with a slap on the wrist.
You can read the announcement of the indictment here: https://www.justice.gov/usao-az/pr/mediamuv-principals-charged-stealing-millions-music-royalties
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