(CelebrityAccess) – AdRev, which Downtown Music Holdings owns, has reportedly ousted its co-founder, former President, and strategic advisor, Noah Becker, as reported by Digital Music News. AdRev is a rights management company that collects YouTube royalties on behalf of rightsholders. Becker is no longer listed on the company’s website, but a source confirmed to Billboard that he has left.
Initially reported by Billboard, the company MediaMuv allegedly committed fraud in collecting $23 million in royalties for music to which it did not own rights. The alleged fraud involved 50,000 Latin music copyrights. It ran from about 2017 to 2021, according to court documents, and involved compositions or tracks credited to Daddy Yankee, Anuel AA, Prince Royce, and Don Omar, as well as smaller Mexican musicians and songwriters. AdRev acted as MediaMuv’s rights manager, collecting a large sum of its royalties from YouTube and then transferring it to the company. It is not clear if Becker’s departure is related to this.
According to industry professionals, companies like AdRev are usually paid a percentage of the money they collect – usually between 10% and 25%. That means AdRev would have potentially made more than $2.3 million for its work for MediaMuv.
Becker was alerted to MediaMuv’s inaccurate royalties claims by another rights manager on multiple occasions, according to emails obtained by Billboard. In one such email, sent January 2018, Becker replied to the rights manager, who told him that over the previous month, MediaMuv had incorrectly claimed songs from five of the creators he represented (one of which had 15 different songs claimed at once), saying, “none of this is a product of MediaMuv trying to land-grab revenue or doing anything with mal intent — more miscommunication, misunderstanding and having inaccurate metadata than anything else on our part.”
In March 2018, Becker replied to another email from the same rights manager, saying, “Given the volume of repertoire they [MediaMuv] deal with vs. issues, we feel pretty comfortable. Plus, we are just the admin, and there’s already so much negative crap about us that’s not true, so we just let this stuff bounce off our backs. But we keep a tight eye on this account and have been only increasing in comfort level lately.”
A federal grand jury in Arizona indicted MediaMuv co-founders Jose Medina Teran and Webster Batista Fernandez for 30 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft in November 2021. Yet, IRS investigators noted in a court document that AdRev deposited $285,344 in a bank account associated with the MediaMuv account two weeks later. That same day, the bank account was emptied, and a cashier’s check for $191,449 was made payable to Teran. The check was deposited into his newly opened business account at the National Bank of Arizona. Fernandez later pled guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy.
AdRev has not been charged with any wrongdoing involving its dealings with MediaMuv. Still, in a warrant to seize a Media Muv bank account, it notes, “further investigation into AdRev is underway.”
AdRev previously told Billboard that it could not comment on this, citing the ongoing criminal case against Teran, but that it “has fully cooperated with the investigation into this matter conducted by the IRS and the District of Arizona US Attorney’s office as outlined in the indictment. This matter is ongoing, pending sentencing for Webster Batista Fernandez and trial for Jose Medina Teran. AdRev employees may be called as witnesses at trial or sentencing. AdRev will not be commenting publicly on any facts related to the indictment until the conclusion of the criminal matter.”
