3 Count: A Copyright Scam
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1: Sony Worker and Crony Stole Nearly $750K From Music Giant in Song Scam
First off today, Jame Fanelli at DNAinfo reports that a former Sony Music copyright analyst and his cohort are facing criminal charges over a scam that allegedly bilked some $750,000 from Sony Music in the form of false royalty payments.
The case centers around Xavier Guzman, who was a copyright analyst at Sony. Between 2009 and 2014 he convinced the company that it needed to pay royalties to Daniel Lachica on more than 250 songs. That totaled up to a royalty payment of $736,359, $410,000 of which was allegedly paid to Guzman with Lachica keeping the rest.
The two have been arrested and were arraigned in a Manhattan courtroom yesterday. They each face felony charges for grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property. Lachica was also charged with money laundering.
2: Fight Over Shakira’s ‘Loca’ Revived In Court
Next up today, Leila Cobo at Billboard reports that the lawsuit over the Shakira song Loca may not be over just yet as the plaintiffs in the case are asking the judge to set aside his earlier ruling.
The lawsuit was brought by independent publisher Mayimba Music, which claimed that Loca was based on the song Loca con su Tiguere written by Ramon Aria Vasquez in the 90s. The judge initially found in favor of Mayimba but set aside the verdict saying it was based on fabricated evidence.
However, Mayimba is now claiming that their lawyer at the time suffered from severe health issues that were not properly reported to the court. They now have new attorneys and are asking the judge to set aside both the ruling and the $2.2 million attorney fee award that he had filed against them.
3: Someone stole The Fat Jew’s book and posted the whole thing on Twitter
Finally today, Joe Velix at Death and Taxes writes that comedian Josh Ostrovsky, better known as “The Fat Jew”, has released a new book entitled Money Pizza Respect only to have the book leak onto Twitter. There, an anonymous account has posted every page from it, image by image in individual tweets.
Ostrovsky ran into controversy his own after an uproar over a plagiarism scandal cost him a planned show on Comedy Central. Ostrovsky, who is popular on Instagram, was accused of stealing jokes and ideas from other comedians. Ostrovsky, for his part, has said he would try to do better with attribution and fix some of his earlier works.
His new book has been widely panned by critics. The Twitter account did have a link to a Google Doc containing the full book, but that link has been taken down, even though the Google Doc itself remains active.
Suggestions
That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.
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