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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[–] tomkatt@lemmy.world 50 points 2 months ago (7 children)

Maybe a stupid question but.... what exactly was illegal about this? I'm sure there were ToS or EULAs violated, but what law is he being charged on?

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's fraud I'm assuming. They fake "plays" for Spotify to reward by sending payment, but these plays were people that did not exist. Spotify was paying for ghosts to essentially steam music

[–] PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Facebook and other social media corporations use AI bots to generate "views" to inflate their traffic numbers to entice advertisers. They also use bots to piss people off and drive "engagement.". Which is also fraud.

[–] Mammothmothman@lemmy.ca 10 points 2 months ago

Its not wrong when a corporation does it its capitalism. When an individual does it its crime.

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