this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
1092 points (99.0% liked)

Technology

69298 readers
3901 users here now

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

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
1092
Man Arrested for Creating Fake Bands With AI, Then Making $10 Million by Listening to Their Songs With Bots (futurism.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
223 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
[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I think the Botting of streams to game the royalties is the bit they don't like.

Obviously it would be a beach of t&cs

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I've never heard of someone being arrested for breaching ToS though. They could be sued for breach of contract, but that's it. So far the only thing I could think of is if the bots were illegally acquired by hacking devices or something. There's nothing illegal about paying for a server and having it download free Spotify streams.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

There's nothing illegal about downloading streams, but if the purpose of your downloads is to get fraudulent royalties, then of course it's illegal as wire fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 1343.