Technology

59174 readers

2521 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

1089

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

229 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] JeSuisUnHombre@lemm.ee 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't see how this is money laundering or wire fraud. I hope he gets off. Or the real best solution would to make it so the revenue just goes to the artists the AI is ripping off.

[–] KnightontheSun@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My understanding is that the contractual agreement with advertisers is that they pay to reach ears. The ads did not reach any ears as promised which could be equated to fraud.

[–] Crozekiel@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So are we committing fraud if we turn on Spotify and leave it playing in an empty, sound-proof room??

That contractual agreement has nothing to do with the user or artist, its between advertisers and the platform. That can't be what they got this guy for.

[–] KnightontheSun@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Not sure how all that can be separated out meaningfully as it is the platform being used and advertisers have expectations based on whatever agreement has been struck between them. Maybe I misunderstood. Perhaps the difference in your example is a user acting versus a bot? Intent probably comes up somewhere as well, but I am not a lawologist. 🤷‍♂️