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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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[–] Camzing@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

So it's OK if you are a real artist?

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[–] demizerone@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

And he thought he could get away with it without bribing the politicians!

[–] General_Effort@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

SMITH created thousands of accounts on the Streaming Platforms (the “Bot Accounts”) that he could use to stream songs. He then used software to cause the Bot Accounts to continuously stream songs that he owned. At a certain point in the charged time period, SMITH estimated that he could use the Bot Accounts to generate approximately 661,440 streams per day, yielding annual royalties of $1,207,128.

From the original press release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence

Kinda funny how the term "AI" drowns out all rational thought and reading comprehension. Of course, that's why it's there in the clickbait headline. I avoid news sources that pull that sort of thing. I don't appreciate being manipulated.

[–] Eldritch@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Calorie event?! Why not just call it a doughnut.

[–] captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org 2 points 2 months ago

I would like that source code for… reasons.

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