How A New York Times Reporter Scammed Hundreds of Musicians

Start with 600 counts of mail/wire fraud… then 600 counts of money laundering, hell just have the DOJ go full 1000 RICO charges against him… I mean his wife was definitely in on it (my opinion) so is conspiracy in RICO if not add that to it!!! FFS I’m not a music artist I’m a 28 year career firefighter and wannabe photographer for around 10 years so yeah…

Either it was an attempt to deceive by Ian, or it wasn’t. I believe he(Ian) was too clever for his own good. And absolutely deceitful - even if it was quasi-legal at the time.

I wonder what Religion this NYT reporter subscribes to

Deserves to get sued for this bs

Why are you surprised that NYT has tried to scam you?

Lmao the NYT is a rag for leftist propaganda.

His deception was absolutely purposeful. That he contacted so many in such a short time, AND still is, says so. So... what does that say about his character? I would be skeptical of anything he's written, on any subject.

No offence, but the fact that someone wanted do produce an album about oceanic politics (?!) should have been the first red flag. Even if it was marketed with a calendar featuring "the Coast Guard's hottest Search and Rescue members" I can't imagine it selling more than a few copies. Regardless, shame on him for trying to scam people, and kudos to you, Benn, for shining a light on his transgressions. Your videos are packed with extremely useful information. Keep up the good work.

If you album doesn't sell, you get $2000? How does that work?

Ohhh that sneaky snake charmer!

If he’s scammed that hard, he’s cheated on his taxes, and financial disclosures. That’s how you’ll get the contract voided.

Noam lost the plot years ago.

Man… you should be writing for The New York Times. Not that *ssh*le…

"Reputable hearsay" is not a concept in real life.

Ironic, a journalist got uh... journalisted?

Late to the party here, but I was reading about this and he had stopped working for NYT in 2019 to focus on Outlaw Ocean. So him using his NYT email to contact you all was another misleading tactic.

A fun thing about contracts is that they can be implied even when they're not written in official legalese... If he promised, in an email, promotion and there was no promotion he's in breach of contract.

We as artistic IP creators need to agree to stop selling copyrights. Sell LICENSING. Nothing more. Modern publishing has become codified organized crime. Only because too many of us, for reasons I don't understand, agree to it. There are a thousand excuses publishers make, always pertaining to their financial risk. We really need to just say no. AND - there is no net. What is net? Yeah yeah, tradition says publishers get to deduct for this and that and the other. Fuck all that. It's not 1978 and we really can refuse.

The biggest scams come from the best social engineering

There's a remarkable lack of noise online about this, which makes me wonder if legal action is currently in motion. Things tend to be very quiet in the early stages while everyone's trying to work out if it'll be court or settlement.

This guy must have contacted thousands of musicians. The pitch raises scam flags, although it‘s a skilful pitch - and this is not me saying people shouldn‘t have fallen for it; I‘ve fallen for door sales scams, we‘re all vulnerable and must talk about it - so a number of people must have picked up on that and not signed. Beyond that, emails just statistically often don‘t get read or flagged as spam. The fact that hundreds of artists signed anyway must indicate that he thrown a net spanning thousands.

Salt creek playin while you disclaim legal jargon is dope asf

Any news on this?

Now find me a story where IP actually protected someone, was not used as a scam to steal money from musicians.

Does this not sound like a classic GRU operation?

Hey, has anything happened on this? Did some googling but couldn't really find any more info on it.

This is amazingly informative and quite unique. I mean, 60 Minutes should be covering this. - and perhaps American Greed (after the dude gets busted)

This sort of thing happens a lot in the bootstrapping tech startup community. I don't think of it as a scam as much as a very toxic mindset that can devolve into a scam if the antagonist is successful in getting free work under the promise of collaboration.

An entrepreneur will come along with an idea but they lack the means to execute on the idea. They then seek collaborators that will work for free to implement the idea yet somehow always try to control the collaborator as if they were a work for hire employee and not a co-owner.

And why does the entrepreneur think that way? It's because they think their idea is so guaranteed to be successful that they should be rewarded for that idea more than the implementers of the idea. It's incredibly toxic and very scam-like and that's what this story makes me think of.

In practice ideas, especially business ideas, are literally a dime a billion. Just like any creative work it may hit or miss and most of the time it misses. Even great ideas often only succeed with a great deal of luck. History is littered with examples of great ideas that were executed extremely well that just flat out failed for no good reason.

The antagonist in this story must have an inflated view of their contribution to the project. Like somehow the business idea is worth more than a musician's ability to publish a song. And that is the ultimate self-deception that likely forms the basis of this scam.

I dont see the 'problem'. He provided a contract that the participating parties read, agreed to, and signed. No difference than any other bad contract one can sign in tinseltown. In general contracts are not written for the artists benefit. Only an extremely green artist would not know this. It's how the industry works.

How ironic is that one of the topics covered by his book is modern-day slavery...

American´s biggest weakness is that they actually check their email

What a shit of a human being this Ian Urbina is... abusing the already abused... low low low.

I went to the website for the project and found the below in the FAQ... Is it true that artists now get the revenue?

How is revenue from the music divided?
Historically, the divides were as follows: After expenses, 50 percent of revenue made on the music goes to the musician. The remaining portion went to Synesthesia, the label that runs the music project, for the sake of producing more music and amplifying the reporting further. At the end of 2021, Synesthesia shifted the splits so that musicians would instead draw 100 percent of their streaming revenue (after expenses). Then, if musicians want to make a donation to support more reporting or more music, they could do that on their own.

Your Channel is so good man,
And I haven’t even listened to your music yet 🥹

Oh wait, you're the flashbulb?
The guy who made "you take the world's weight away" or is that someone esle?

Why does everybody keep giving this guy praise? Did it not occur to you that the scam artist has ALWAYS been scamming? I bet all his "important investigative journalism" was bull.

i think youre being way too generous with the guy. this is clearly a corrupt, greedy person who lied and mislead people for personal gain

Watched this video when it came out, it’s pretty sad. So what happened ever since this video came out?
Did Ian made it right or still collecting money silently?

1.38% profits for 100% of work.
That is even worse than 20% for 80% deal.
That is not a scheme, it is a scam.

One really important aspect of contract law that a lot of people miss: if one side is not agreeing to anything, it's not a valid contract. Both parties need to be taking on an obligation, or it's not a valid contract and can be contested under substantive unconscionability, or due to lack of consideration (consideration being a legal term, not the common usage of the word).

What being released from this contract means is not entirely clear, though.

Not that you'll see this, but I just realized that Alphabasic Music Center is the non-profit you mention previously running. No joke, I learned sound reinforcement through a high school program back in the mid 2000s that actually took place at Benton House, right up the street from you. Small world.

Ian Urbina? That doesn't sound like the name of a Nigerian prince, but I guess it is.

NYTimes being unethical? Who'dathunkit

You are far too kind to this POS.

Those journalists need to be sued! They need to have the shit suit out of them!

Any updates on this?

do you have an update for March 2025, please, I am so intrigued!!!!

Do you have British relatives within two generations?