Music label director who defrauded Scriabin's wife of UAH 1.5 million is suspected
Kyiv • UNN
The head of the Moon Records music label is suspected of fraud with royalties from Kuzmenko's works. Through a scheme with a Czech company, the musician's widow lost UAH 1.5 million in 2017-2019.
The director of one of the Ukrainian labels has been charged with fraud. The woman cheated the wife of singer Andriy Kuzmenko out of UAH 1.5 million, UNN reports, citing the National Police of Ukraine.
Details
As UNN has learned from its own sources, it is a music label called Moon Records.
According to the information, an agreement was concluded between the wife of the deceased musician and the label, which stipulated that 70% of the income from the use of the singer's intellectual property would be received by his wife, and 30% for the management of his assets would be received by the record label. However, the calculation of the remuneration, which was sent to the company of the deceased's wife within three years of the conclusion of the agreement, did not correspond to the real data on the digital music distribution market. Namely, the director of Moon Records deliberately reduced the number of listens to music tracks on streaming platforms and the amount of remuneration to the copyright holder.
The operatives of the Cyberpolice Department found that in order to increase illegal profits, the record label entered into an agreement with a Czech music distribution company. The latter assured the owner of the works that the foreign firm was their subsidiary and did not take any percentage of the profits. In fact, the foreign "partners" took up to 85% of the profits, and the actual number of listens on streaming platforms was also underestimated
According to an independent intellectual property expertise, the digital distribution of the deceased musician's recordings in 2017-2019 was supposed to bring his wife at least one and a half million hryvnias in profit.
Currently, the director of Moon Records faces up to eight years in prison.
Recall
Law enforcement officers exposed criminal groups that organized match-fixing in both esports and sports through bookmakers. Among the participants were former world-class athletes who earned millions of hryvnias from fraud.