this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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Man Arrested for Creating Fake Bands With AI, Then Making $10 Million by Listening to Their Songs With Bots (futurism.com)
submitted 2 months ago by ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net to c/technology@lemmy.world
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The songs that the AI CEO provided to Smith originally had file names full of randomized numbers and letters such as "n_7a2b2d74-1621-4385-895d-b1e4af78d860.mp3," the DOJ noted in its detailed press release.

When uploading them to streaming platforms, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, the man would then change the songs' names to words like "Zygotes," "Zygotic," and "Zyme Bedewing," whatever that is.

The artist naming convention also followed a somewhat similar pattern, with names ranging from the normal-sounding "Calvin Mann" to head-scratchers like "Calorie Event," "Calms Scorching," and "Calypso Xored."

To manufacture streams for these fake songs, Smith allegedly used bots that stream the songs billions of times without any real person listening. As with similar schemes, the bots' meaningless streams were ultimately converted to royalty paychecks for the people behind them.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 140 points 2 months ago (24 children)

Not sure how this is a crime... breach of TOS, sure, but a crime?

What law is being broken here?

If his fake bands are being paid for bot clicks, that's a problem for the platforms to figure out. They need to examine their TOS.

[–] RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Not sure how this is a crime... breach of TOS, sure, but a crime?

What law is being broken here?

Not curious enough to actually read the article, eh?

Indicted on three counts involving money laundering and wire fraud

One may argue about money laundering but it's pretty clearly fraud.

[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 12 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's just a generic indictment. And it's allegedly. How do you perform wire fraud if a corporation legally paid you for a service?

[–] jacksilver@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yeah I read another article on this and it's very unclear what was illegal. If I had to guess they're getting him on the technicalities of the process rather than on the actual streaming.

Edit: so I looked it up and realized wire fraud is "electronic" fraud, not bank wiring - Online definition

Which given the way the guy did it definitely seems to meet that definition.

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