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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 50 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (8 children)

Fyi Spotify has been doing stuff like this for years, hire dirt cheap artists, make up a fake artist/band name, upload generic jingles and implant them on every single category playlist they can. Prime example are playlists for things that don't have too much complexity like lo-fi, calm piano, stuff like that. Disgusting. Edit: u can spot them out by digging thru some of the "artists", and when u find one with fishy profile try looking them up on other platforms. Millions of plays on Spotify but nearly nonexistent outside of it? That's a plant😂

[–] overload@sopuli.xyz 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I didn't even know about this but I think you're right. I just scrolled through the Calm Piano playlist and the third song down was by an artist with millions of streams, but absolutely zero online presence outside of Spotify and Apple Music. Their about section was just a generic sentence.

I hate this. So the idea is that the cost of creating this music is less than the payout of streaming royalties if they push the songs on their official generic playlists, effectively keeping the money in-house rather than paying to an external artist.. yay..

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