Maroon 5 and the new phenomenon baffling the music industry The Sunday Telegraph tracked down Joshua Weinstein, who admitted to being the label manager of Precision Tunes, to New York. Speaking for the first time, he promised to stop releasing copycat songs before the originals, and pledged to "relinquish any monies made" from such tracks. Copycat versions of popular songs have been widely available since digital downloads took off a decade ago. The practice sees session musicians and computer experts produce a near-exact imitation of the original after hearing it on the radio. The copies are sold on websites such as iTunes and Amazon, typically for 79p a track. Previously, however, the copies have only been released after the original version became popular. The new tactic of releasing copycat versions before the original has enraged the music industry. It is possible because of the unique situation in the UK where, unlike in other countries, songs by big acts get weeks of radio airplay before the official single is released. Traditionally, this has allowed bands to build demand to ensure big first week sales. The internet, however, means cover bands can now get in first, quickly making an online copy of the song available for fans who cannot wait for the real thing, or who do not realise they are buying an imitation. Insiders last week revealed, however, that it has so far gone unchecked, partly because the copycats are operating in a legal grey area created by the rapidly-evolving nature of the internet. Some experts said that such releases would be open to legal challenge because they breach the original artists' 'first mechanical right', which gives the songwriter the right to record and release their version before anyone else. The debate has intensified since the Maroon 5 controversy. On June 17, a track called "Payphone (Maroon 5 Feat Wiz Khalifa Tribute) " by an unknown group calling itself Precision Tunes made it to number nine in the official charts, purely on the basis of online downloads. This was a week before the US band Maroon 5 and the rapper Wiz Khalifa released the official version of their song Payphone. In the week it reached the top ten, the Precision Tunes version reportedly sold 34,492 downloads - a figure which music industry insiders said was surprisingly high. The Sunday Telegraph set out to find the individuals behind the song release. We established that the song had been put up for sale on iTunes by an international online music distribution company called The Orchard, which has a base in London's West End and regularly protects its own copyrights when they are breached on YouTube. We then found that The Orchard had distributed the track on behalf of Mr Weinstein, a New York-based music producer. He confirmed that he was the man behind Precision Tunes, and the manager of its label "PT Records." In a statement, Mr Weinstein said he was now "restructuring" his operation and pledged to "relinquish the proceeds" from Payphone and eight other tracks copied from other artists, including Usher, Jennifer Lopez and Justin Bieber. He said: "We have currently restructured the company and its employees, are in the process of issuing takedowns and researching accounting for those releases and plan to relinquish any monies made on the nine releases." Although the Precision Tunes cover version is the first to make it to the top ten, in February 'Kings of Pop' reached number 40 with a sound-alike version of the song The Hardest Ever, by will.i.am, the musician and judge of the BBC talent show The Voice. In April 'Carly Rae Jepsen Tribute Team' got to number 49 with a cover of Call Me Maybe a week before the Canadian singer Carly Rae Jepsen released the original version of her song. In an attempt to thwart copying, some record labels are now rushing their songs out as soon as they realise a cover version is online. Earlier this month the success of a cover group named Can You Blow My in reaching number 38 prompted the rush release of the US artist Flo Rida's song Whistle, two weeks earlier than planned. For every copy of a cover version sold, the online retailer - such as iTunes - gets a percentage, and also passes a percentage on to the genuine composer of the original song as a writer's fee. The performers of the original song, however, will miss out on sound recording royalties which they would have received if the buyer had purchased a copy of the genuine track. Online retailers get a percentage of the cover version's download fee. There is no suggestion, however, that they are in any way responsible for the practice. The big retailers usually insist that anyone selling through their sites signs a waiver saying their own all relevant rights to the music. On June 24, Maroon 5 reached number one in the UK, with sales figures of more than 141,000. By then the Precision Tunes cover version had slipped to 85. It has now been taken down from iTunes. Tim Lewis, the managing director of Singsongs Music Ltd, a UK based record label which releases 'sound-alike' songs for the karaoke market, explained how the process of recording works. He said: "The production process can be quite complicated but generally speaking the songs are reproduced in a recording studio. The producer will have a copy of the original song and musicians will be asked to reproduce their own part instrument by instrument. But the process will depend on the nature of the original version. If it's a pop song, for example, then the songs will often use lots of synthetic instruments. If it's a jazz track then things will be different. The Orchard was founded in New York in 1997 by Richard Gottehrer, a record producer, and Scott Cohen, a music manager, and is now one of the world's largest independent distributors of digital music, used by original artists as well those creating cover versions. It merged with another distributor IODA in March, creating a firm with a reported $130 million (£83 million) revenue. Mr Cohen, now the international vice president of the company, is a visiting professor at London Metropolitan University and sits on the council of British Phonographic Industry, the record industry's trade body. The Orchard declined to comment.