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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 4 weeks 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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[–] JIMMERZ@lemm.ee 97 points 3 weeks ago (21 children)

He found a flaw in the system and exploited it. Although he didn’t do anything particularly wrong, the tools he used allowed him to do it. Yet, somehow he has to pay the consequences and the companies that made the tools to exploit the system are not liable. Got it.

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 3 weeks ago (13 children)

What.

If he used python for creating the bots, should python creators go to jail?

[–] LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world 24 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

Nah he is saying the streaming services should fix their flaw / the guy shouldn't have consequences for what he did, as it was all inputted in a legal way it seems.

[–] JIMMERZ@lemm.ee 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Exactly. The flaw is in the streaming service. They say “upload your music and make money” while skimming the lions share of the profits. But if they use tools that are openly available to all, i.e. generative AI (which uses copyrighted works for it generational algorithms) AND the Streaming service systems themselves, somehow this user is at fault because they don’t like the way he did it and the amount he uploaded. It seems to me it’s a problem with the system and not the user.

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 10 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think you're missing the key part of the problem. It isn't the AI that's the issue.

The problem is that he was being paid for how many listeners his AI songs got. But he used bots to "listen" to the songs. Nobody actually listened to his AI music.

The flaw in the system was that they couldn't detect his bots. (And the bots are not AI)

[–] postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 1 points 3 weeks ago

If money is people ( citizens united ish ) , Then playing this music 9ver speakers to your dollar bills would legally be a listen?

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