Between January 2008 and June 2009, Lemar Johnson, 19, and a group of nine other individuals used stolen credit cards to buy their own music that they uploaded to iTunes and Amazon. The group downloaded their songs around 6,000 times during the span of their scam, supposedly (and that’s a big ‘supposedly,’ coming as it does from The Daily Mail) netting them around $773,000 in royalties.
Johnson pled guilty to conspiracy to defraud, but is currently serving a five year sentence for grievous bodily harm, so the sentence he receives will likely be added onto the one he is currently serving. The trial is currently on hold until January 25, which is when the cases of the other men involved in the scam will be heard.
(We’re pretty skeptical of how 6,000 or so song purchases could result in $773,000 in royalties, though it’s theoretically possible if the group of men uploaded way more songs than a single album would contain on average and downloaded each of them over 6,000 times.)
(Daily Mail via The Next Web via Gizmodo; title pic via Credit Card Chaser)
