Hey guys.  I just stumbled across this on Twitter.

A group of Local DJs from the UK, aged 19 to 41, have been arrested after using stolen and photocopied credit cards to buy almost £500,000 ($829,209 in US or 587,287 Euros) of their own music on Itunes, scoring £200,000 ($331,921 in US or 234,839 in Euros) in royalties!

Full article below:

Quote

DJs arrested in £200,000 iTunes scam
By JO STEELE - Wednesday, June 10, 2009

A group of DJs allegedly used stolen credit cards to buy their own songs on iTunes and Amazon, boosting their chart ratings and netting them nearly £200,000 in royalties.
The nine musicians are believed to have provided 19 songs, described by police as of 'indeterminate quality', to a distribution company which uploaded them to the music websites.

They then used 1,500 stolen or cloned US and British credit cards to buy almost £500,000-worth of the songs.

As the tunes soared up the charts, more and more people bought them and the DJs even came to the attention of big record producers - until they were arrested yesterday.

'This has been a complex investigation to establish what we believe to be an international conspiracy to defraud Apple and Amazon,' said Det Ch Insp Terry Wilson, of the Met's Police Central e-Crime Unit.

The scam began last September when the DJs provided American music distributor Tunecore with their work.

Once uploaded to iTunes and Amazon, the musicians opened accounts with the stolen cards and began downloading their albums at about £6 a time.

During the next few months, the two companies paid out royalties totalling $300,000 (£185,000) on the sales.

But in December, Apple - owner of iTunes - began to receive 'stop payment' orders from credit card companies, saying accounts were fraudulent.

It contacted police in New York and, with the Met's help, the accounts were traced to London.

The DJs, aged 19 to 41, were arrested in London and the Midlands on suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.

SOURCE:  METRO.CO.UK http://www.metro.co.uk/news/article.html?DJs_arrested_in_%EF%BF%BD200,000_iTunes_scam&in_article_id=682928&in_page_id=34&in_a_source=

Money conversions were done using www.xe.com.

This news is starting to escalate, I'm sure it would be a minority group that is responsible.

I posted this article again. Sorry  but I'll go ahead and re post my comments on it here.

The article above has posed a new problem, I think for the music industry (though perhaps not for those perpetrating it). Perhaps this simply boils down to why are you making music? For money or for the sheer love of it. We all know that there are some shady Dj's out there givng many a bad name. In this digital age I suppose it was only a matter of time that something similar happened but I'm just shocked at to what the magnitude of it is. Though  if you know your music isn't good and your lazy it would be easier to steal someone's credit card info and have them buy 1,000 copies of your song to artificially inflate both your ego and your wallet. *I* wouldn't see it as easier than practicing and learning but I guess they do...

What do you think? Would you be tempted to do this? With the advent of iTunes and the like it's remarkably easy...

I do agree that this is the LOWEST of the low.  You can pull all the scams in the world, but it doesn't change the fact that it takes a LOT of hard work, dedication and determination to get to the top.  Not to mention that people who decide to pull these crazy scams make it a LOT harder for those of us that our working are you-know-whats off to make it in the electronic realm and share our music with the world!  This is because the cheaters get recognition even though they scammed everyone and then no one pays attention to people who play fair.

This isn't the first time someone has done something like this.  A few years back. Christopher Lawrence and DJ Dan were disqualified from the DJ Magazine poll after it was discovered that their management rigged the voting system against the DJs' wishes and voted more than was allowed.  Once DJ Magazine relalized that it was the management and not the DJs that rigged the system,  DJ Dan and Christopher Lawrence were cleared of suspicion, and fired the management parties that were responsible.

See I also have issues with some of the music management, because manytimes (especially here in the states) even though payola is illegal (paying someone to play your music more often on the radio stations...) I *know* it's happening here like crazy! I hear one song WAY too many times for it to just be 'high rotation.' High rotation is about twice an hour (which is enough as it is) but I hear somethings upwards 3 and it's the SAME playlist in the same order all the time!

That being said, I think management is pushing their clients and greasing palms and part of me wouldn't be surprised if a version of this is being done to drive their clients names to the top of the downlading charts. Not nessicarily with stolen credit cards but their own or the company's own. After all it becomes a buisness exspense...

Originally posted by Lady

See I also have issues with some of the music management, because manytimes (especially here in the states) even though payola is illegal (paying someone to play your music more often on the radio stations...) I *know* it's happening here like crazy! I hear one song WAY too many times for it to just be 'high rotation.' High rotation is about twice an hour (which is enough as it is) but I hear somethings upwards 3 and it's the SAME playlist in the same order all the time!

That being said, I think management is pushing their clients and greasing palms and part of me wouldn't be surprised if a version of this is being done to drive their clients names to the top of the downlading charts. Not nessicarily with stolen credit cards but their own or the company's own. After all it becomes a buisness exspense...

And this is why I haven't been listening to the radio in some time.  The evil corporation, known as Clear Channel, which owns a LOT of your local radio stations does whatever it can to make repeat playlist in order to maintain the audiences attention.  It does get REALLY old after awhile.  That's why we have the ZUNE.
10 reasons why ZUNE is better than radio:
1.  You can control what songs play on it.
2.  You never have to worry about commercials.
3.  You can customize the order of your playlist.
4.  There is no static.
5.  There's no talk in between the songs.
6.  If a song comes on you don't like, You can change it to a song you do like.
7.  You can hear music other than what is popular.
8.  You can buy new songs without using a computer or going to the record store.
9.  Music isn't the only thing a ZUNE can do, there is also games and videos.
10.  You can share tunes with your ZUNE friends!

Oh yes I know of the Clear Channel beast...which is why I'm glad I DJed for my little College Radio station where I could play what I wanted... (Ironically I came on right after a live all request DJ Show...).

lol I have to agree about the Zune (or at least about MP3 players in general.

This is pretty disgusting. Do they say who these musicians were? I would like to avoid them like the plague. I guess what it really points to is the rat race that has become of the music world, or at least in the eyes of some people. I can't understand what people are thinking. Not only is this the perfect dumb crime executed by dumb criminals, the philosophy is completely backwards. Music is not all about money. I don't sit down at my computer and think, "Wow, I could make a ton of money for this." No, sorry, though I'm down for money, I just feel that hard work and passion are the only paths to a better music career. Sure, I would love to have my work signed by a label like In Trance We Trust or High Contrast Recordings or some other major group, and all the naive romanticized kicks of a contract that is perfectly without controversy, but honestly, this would primarily be because I want to see as many people as possible listen to my song. Granted, though, I'm also a civil engineer, so the only way I can afford to dedicate time to music is if I work elsewhere as well. Unless you've got it made, good luck making a living on music alone.

Unfortunately, I don't think it linearly follows that hard work, talent, and passion all correlate to higher rankings or exposure. There are plenty of crap songs making it to the top charts, as many of us understand. However, cheating your way through the system is not an OK alternative.

I completely agree. Music (especially DJing) is one of those things that you must do for the love. Even if you make millions at your music but hate DJing your going to either move on to something else that 'inspired you' or 'retire' and attempt to live off your royalties. If someone does manage to power through  on sheer will the person burns out quickly.

These guys are people who did it more for the love of money than the love of music.