Kuzma Scriabin royalties scandal: Moon Records founder declared wanted
6 February 02:36
The director of Moon Records LLC, who in December was suspected of embezzling royalties intended for the widow of Kuzma Skryabin (Andrei Kuzmenko), will be tried. Another figure in the criminal proceedings – the founder of the music label – is declared wanted. This is reported Komersant ukrainskyi with reference to the Office of the Prosecutor General.
The director of the music label is accused of forging documents and fraudulent acquisition of funds in large amounts by abuse of trust (part 4 of article 190, part 1 of article 366 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
According to the investigation, after the death of the singer, his widow Svetlana Babiychuk transferred exclusive proprietary copyrights to her husband’s works to the company Kuzma Skryabin LLC, which granted Moon Records LLC a license for any reproduction of all his songs. Under the terms of the agreement, 70% of the revenues were to be received by Scriabin’s widow’s company and 30% by the label.
However, the label “deliberately underestimated the number of listens to his songs on digital platforms.” In addition, Moon Records entered into an additional agreement with the Czech company Moon Vinyl s.r.o., which retained a significant portion of royalties (up to 85%).
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An independent examination showed that the digital distribution of records of the deceased musician in 2017-2019 should have brought his wife at least 1.5 million UAH profit.
The names of the founder of Moon Records law enforcers do not indicate.
Sources of the Public in law enforcement agencies specified that we are talking about the CEO of Moon Records Tatiana Korchemakha, which after the death of Kuzma Skryabin received the rights to all his work from the widow of the artist Svetlana Babiychuk.
The founder of Moon Records is wanted. The Attorney General’s office says it is taking international cooperation measures to protect copyrights and prevent foreign companies from illegally using the artist’s music.
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