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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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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 67 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Honestly, what did he do wrong? He made crappy cheap music and listened to it using AI and bots. listening to it must have cost him subscription money, so I guess he just listened enough to get the songs popular enough so that other would listen, and they did and everyone made money.

Yeah, it's all cheap shit but it's wrong when he does it but totally fine when so many other media companies do it?

[–] kungen@feddit.nu 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

but totally fine when so many other media companies do it?

Do other media companies create fake streams?

Fraud is the crime of obtaining money or property by deceiving people. He deceived streaming platforms, as he botted his songs in order to earn royalties.

The whole "AI" thing is irrelevant; it'd be the same situation if he manually produced all his music.

[–] bokherif@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago

Other media companies use bots to boost streams all the time. Hence the mostly shitty popular music of today. The kind of music you make does not matter today, how you market it or ‘boost’ it does.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

he botted his songs in order to earn royalties.

So if the listens were natural there would no case?

[–] jayandp@sh.itjust.works 10 points 2 months ago

At least, not this case. AI music is its own can of worms that hasn't been decided on in court or law yet.

But the main issue in this case is that he was scamming listens from the music services. So if he'd just let people naturally discover the AI songs somehow, and he earned money just like other Music publishers, then he would've been fine.

[–] Cethin@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, it's an exploit but it doesn't seem illegal. It seems like the issue is with whatever service. They need to fix their contract or their software. Maybe it is in the contract or EULA that you can't do this sort of thing already though, in which case it's fair game.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Maybe it is in the contract or EULA that you can’t do this sort of thing already though

Then that would be a civil matter and he wouldn't have been arrested for it.

[–] octopus_ink@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

I mean, being arrested doesn't mean a crime was committed. It means he's accused of a crime. I'll be interested to see if there is actually a conviction in the end.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 6 points 2 months ago

Exactly, I don't think there was anything illegal here. At best it's breach of contract with Spotify or whoever, and they could get sued. MAYBE there's some interpretation of fraud that could apply? But it's not like he sold anything and misrepresented it.

[–] _edge@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 2 months ago

The bots faking real users' streaming to gain profit is the questionable part. AI generated cheap content (created en masse for profit) will be the norm soon. If you think about it, quality content is already the exception.