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Copyright infringement committed by Vevo LLC, MarvMent LLC and John De'Bey a.k.a. Sean Thurman

Despite extensive documentation filed against the offenders, they remained largely inaccessible to U.S. authorities
>> PUBLISHED ON MARCH 4, 2020
INTRODUCTION:
Throughout the period 2012-2015, our company VIDYPS 79 d.o.o. operated as a music distribution service with the aim of connecting its clients with multiple digital music platforms including Vevo, Google Play, Spotify and many others.
Vevo LLC was a respected on-demand advertising supported video streaming service, owned and financed by a few major labels, including Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. In 2012, VIDYPS 79 launched Blue2Digital as one of the most popular independent services distributing videos to Vevo and YouTube. It operated successfully all the way up until April 2015, when Vevo sent us the delayed royalty reports for January 2015 (as the first in a row) that did not reflect the actual number of views generated from the videos owned by Blue2Digital's artists.
Millions of video views were missing (this especially goes for the most valuable ones made by the viewers in the United States) and we, as a socially responsible company, refused to send such false reports over to our clients. Instead of providing us with genuine data, which we, adamantly, were insisting on, Vevo decided to take down the videos distributed by Blue2Digital.
Vevo LLC suspended any further payments to VIDYPS 79 d.o.o. having left an enormous debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars unpaid to our company and its clients. Eventually, a few months later Vladimir Milicev, CEO of VIDYPS 79 and Blue2Digital, received an automated notification provided by YouTube on raising around 1,000 ownership conflicts between VIDYPS 79 and a rather obscure New York based company called "MarvMent, LLC", which we knew nothing about.
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.:: Meet the New York based company suspected of unauthorized use of around 1,000 music videos on Vevo
WHO IS WHO:
John De'Bey a.k.a. Sean Thurman is a fake entrepreneur from New York City suspected of numerous misrepresentations, fraudulent actions and submission of forged, falsified and altered documents, including but not limited to official corporate, federal, state and court documents. His label was introduced as a client of Blue2Digital in 2012 and this is how we met him at first.
MarvMent LLC was (and still is) incorrectly presented as an "independent distribution company" from New York and actually, greatly supported by Mills (Antonio) Wade from Brooklyn, NY, a system engineer at Vevo.
In September 2016 Vladimir approached Alexander Kisch (Head of Business Affairs at Vevo), who then redirected him to Vevo's outside legal Counsel. The "respectable" Counsel took some time to respond and when he eventually did, he ignored the crucial evidence presented to him arrogantly claiming that Vladimir was not too smart to raise this question at all. According to him, Vevo is innocent, because they really thought John De'Bey was our company's "legal representative" and hence it fully justifies everything they did. However, as is usually the case, he inadvertently sent us the documentation that proved otherwise. The documentation shows that:
  • The Counsel came into possession of some emails that only De'Bey could have supplied him with; it proves the fact that Vevo knew exactly who De'Bey was and he certainly was no representative of VIDYPS 79 or Blue2Digital
  • There were dozens of emails internally shared by Vevo, MarvMent and John De'Bey in September and October 2015, which Mr. Outside Counsel obviously thought we knew about, but we didn't
These emails reveal that John De'Bey was illegally and secretly speaking on behalf of Blue2Digital, while Vevo was represented by Christopher Maehr (Director of Content Operations at Vevo) and Armand Adams (some of the earlier emails include Gene Whitney and Eric Gerson too). Finally, MarvMent was represented by Takeema Gumbs, a registered nurse working in one of the New York's hospitals. Weird, isn't it?
Click HERE to read the entire PDF document related to the copyright infringement.
Click HERE to preview the email screenshots once shared by Vevo, MarvMent and John Guerrier De'Bey.
WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS?
Having considered all the facts and results of our investigation, we had no other choice but turning Vevo, companies and individuals associated with them in to the U.S. Authorities. On August 30, 2017 and November 15, 2017, the report was submitted to the IC3 via WWW.IC3.GOV.
EPILOGUE: VEVO LLC
Gene Whitney left Vevo in February 2016. Christopher Maehr left Vevo shortly after Vladimir contacted Alex Kisch in October 2016. Eric Gerson left Vevo in May 2017.
On December 15, 2017 Vevo's board of directors announced a "leadership transition at the world's leading all-premium music video and entertainment platform". Erik Huggers, Vevo's President and CEO since 2015, had decided to step down to "pursue new opportunities".
Expectedly, on May 24, 2018 Vevo announced "changes to its owned and operated platforms" which resulted in Vevo shutting down its video-hosting service.
And that's all. Vevo never paid a cent, thinking they'd get away with it if just pretend like nothing happened. Does this mean that Vevo is considered a company of national importance falling outside the purview of New York State authorities?
EPILOGUE: MARVMENT LLC
MarvMent did not suffer any consequences (not that we know of them). They are still operating without any problem.
EPILOGUE: JOHN DE'BEY
Although De'Bey's wife, Sylfronia King, who was also deeply involved with De'Bey's illegal activities, has certain (serious) troubles with the law (check out THIS SCREENSHOT and THIS SCREENSHOT taken from the New York State Unified Court System's website in March, 2020), De'Bey himself seems to be quite safe. Just check out his latest Instagram posts:
www.instagram.com/therealjohndebey/
Has he ever been detained by the police for questioning? Did he get off scot-free? There are tons of evidence against John De'Bey and individuals associated with him.
CONCLUSION
It was promised to all of us that the American society and the United States in their entirety would return to their Christian values. This implies that the law applies to everyone, no matter how rich or "nationally" influential he or she may be. We believe that this is exactly the essence of what has happened to us. Unfortunately, these changes do not seem to be in sight.
This reckless behavior and poor experience, eventually, made us launch our own digital watermarking service. It may not help solve this case, but building an ecosystem consisting of digital watermarking apps and tools will certainly be helpful in preventing similar issues from happening in the future.
Until then, we'll be acting accordingly.
* This content is in compliance with our Terms Of Use. We are a socially responsible company whose goal is to warn people of the inconvenience and damage that irresponsible companies and individuals can cause.
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.:: Copyright infringement committed by Vevo LLC, MarvMent LLC and John De'Bey a.k.a. Sean Thurman
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