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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 Stopthatgirl7@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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An alleged scammer has been arrested under suspicion that he used AI to create a wild number of fake bands — and fake music to go with them — and faking untold streams with more bots to earn millions in ill-gotten revenue.

In a press release, the Department of Justice announced that investigators have arrested 52-year-old North Carolina man Michael Smith, who has been charged with a purportedly seven-year scheme that involved using his real-life music skills to make more than $10 million in royalties.

Indicted on three counts involving money laundering and wire fraud, the Charlotte-area man faces a maximum of 20 years per charge.

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[–] bruhsoulz@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Take it this way, if 1 person pays 10$ a month for Spotify and gets about 50 hours of music out of it, it's more beneficial for Spotify if a significant portion of that time is spent on music they pump into the playlists themselves, which costed them pennies to make, instead of having that user listen to real artists, that will ask for actual pay in exchange for their streams. They're not paying a little bit to make alot, they're paying a little bit to avoid paying even more. It's basically average desk job employee outsourcing their work to indians who get like a dollar a day and are happy with it cus it's their only option