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.

  • @yamanii@lemmy.world
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    174 months ago

    Still better than the theory that Spotify itself is making AI jazz and putting them on their oficial playlists to not pay artists.

    • MentalEdge
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      04 months ago

      No.

      By inflating his own playcounts, the value of each play goes down. All that money he got? Came straight out of the pockets of real artists.

  • @mctoasterson@reddthat.com
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    124 months ago

    I thought about experimenting with this (Guess it is a good thing I didn’t). There are so many low effort “Lo Fi” types of streams and tracklists on Spotify and elsewhere. Who is to say my software generated garbage would be any worse than those?

    There are also YouTubers who generate low effort music and ask their normal content subscribers to stream their shit on Spotify even if they aren’t legitimately listening. So are those streams fraudulent as well?

    It sounds like the thing he is getting popped for is the volume of automated streams.

    • @Snoopey@lemmy.world
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      164 months ago

      I think he’s getting done for setting up the bots to listen to his own songs for billions of hours

      • @Crankenstein@lemmy.world
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        Yea his mistake was pumping the number too much. If he would have kept a steady stream of income and not get greedy, they never would have noticed him.

        • @futatorius@lemm.ee
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          14 months ago

          He also would have to make sure the distribution of song plays over time looks like what would be done by actual humans. Once every 5 minutes, 24/7 is easy to detect. And there should be abandonments, interrupted sessions, etc.

    • @virku@lemmy.world
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      64 months ago

      The band Vulfpeck made a silent album named sleepify and asked their fans to stream it while not listening to other music. Made enough money to fund a tour. Spotify change their terms because of it i believe.

    • @leds@feddit.dk
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      14 months ago

      Spotify might as well be doing this themselves already to avoid having to pay all those annoying artist

      • @aesthelete@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, a streaming service with the hit songs like “Zyme Bedewing” from everyone’s favorite artist “Calorie Event”.

        • @MunkysUnkEnz0@lemmy.world
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          34 months ago

          wanting to see if the killer was ever caught. Daphne Caruana Galizia Killer Caught After a thorough investigation, several individuals have been implicated and charged in connection with the assassination of Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia on October 16, 2017. Key developments include:

          Vincent Muscat’s Confession: In March 2021, Vincent Muscat, one of the three men accused of the murder, confessed to the crime in court. He described how he and two others, brothers George and Alfred Degiorgio, used binoculars and a telescope to follow Caruana Galizia’s movements, eventually planting and triggering the car bomb that killed her. Life Sentence Sought: In August 2021, prosecutors sought a life sentence for Yorgen Fenech, a businessman accused of masterminding the murder. Fenech has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. Malta State Responsibility: An independent inquiry, concluded in July 2021, found the Maltese state responsible for Caruana Galizia’s murder due to its creation of a “culture of impunity” that allowed her killers to believe they would face minimal consequences. Arrests and Charges: Several individuals have been arrested and charged in connection with the murder, including: Vincent Muscat (pleaded guilty and received a 15-year sentence in February 2021) George Degiorgio (charged and awaiting trial) Alfred Degiorgio (charged and awaiting trial) Yorgen Fenech (charged and awaiting trial) Melvin Theuma (turned state witness and received a pardon in November 2019) Investigation Ongoing: The investigation is ongoing, with authorities continuing to gather evidence and build cases against those implicated in the murder. Timeline of Key Events

          October 16, 2017: Daphne Caruana Galizia killed in a car bomb attack December 2017: Arrests of suspects, including Vincent Muscat, George Degiorgio, and Alfred Degiorgio November 2019: Melvin Theuma, a taxi driver and alleged middleman, receives a pardon and becomes a state witness March 2021: Vincent Muscat confesses to the murder in court August 2021: Prosecutors seek a life sentence for Yorgen Fenech July 2021: Independent inquiry finds Malta state responsible for Caruana Galizia’s murder Note: The investigation is ongoing, and new developments may emerge as the case proceeds.

        • @Pips@lemmy.sdf.org
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          24 months ago

          She was a journalist who used the Panama Papers to expose high level corruption in Malta. Galizia did not break the Panama Papers story, she’s impressive enough without people making stuff up about her.

        • @emax_gomax@lemmy.world
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          34 months ago

          I hate ads but their designed to be shown to people and intentionally using bots to inflate ad views is very clearly fraud. Silicon valley had something similar with bot farms to fake user engagement to take in VC funding. You take money in exchange for some kinda engagement metric which you’re faking.

    • finley
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      474 months ago

      it’s because his name isn’t NVidia

    • @protist@mander.xyz
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      He was arrested because he faked a ton of information related to his accounts to make it look like many people were doing it. I love that he gamed the system, but also it sounds like he totally committed financial fraud while doing so.

      There are other people who have gamed the system without also committing fraud

    • @lunarul@lemmy.world
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      He didn’t get arrested for AI generated music. He got arrested for faking multiple accounts to upload music and using bots to generate fake listens, thus stealing millions of dollars. If he did the same thing with music he actually wrote and played, he would still be arrested.

  • @Snapz@lemmy.world
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    264 months ago

    Its subtle, but the tone of that article’s coverage actually sucks… Is futurism a piece of shit?

    What a waste of my tax dollars by the DOJ to try to recover spotify´s money for a broken system that they left open and are honestly probably exploiting themselves in parallel to inflate engagement numbers and take streams away from legit artists that they have to play. Remember, they want you in their app, they don’t give a shit about actual music. If you’ll just listen to random boops, they save cost in the middle. Not where I want the justice systems effort to go.

  • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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    834 months ago

    Wow. I’m a hobbyist musician. I have ~12 million listens across various streaming services and have made a whopping $45 in the two years since I finally released ~25 years worth of material. (Which is a lot of why it’s my hobby and not a living.)

    I can’t imagine the numbers this guy had to pull off to make that much.

      • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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        64 months ago

        A little bit, for sure. Tempered harshly by the fact I’ve spent thousands of hours and thousands of units of cash on a hobby that paid me back $45. Good thing I don’t do it for the money!

        • @NineMileTower@lemmy.world
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          24 months ago

          I was just kidding. I’m very jealous. I’ve spent thousands and have nothing to show for it. Maybe a hundred bucks from live shows 20 years ago.

          • @basskitten@lemmy.world
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            24 months ago

            The most money I ever made in the music industry was being part of a class action lawsuit against MTV. Record sales and live shows are nothing.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      164 months ago

      I have ~12 million listens across various streaming services

      The great thing about bots is that they can listen to every song on file, 24/7/365, and you can spin up as many of them as you like. 12 million is nothing.

      • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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        54 months ago

        I have to wonder about the logistics. He can’t be running them on his own single Internet connection. Or could VPNs handle it so it would appear his listens are coming from all over the world? $10M is a lot of money. How long did it take to amass that?

      • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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        54 months ago

        Searching my username should do it. Not sure what streaming services you’re subscribed to. It’s all on YouTube, too.

        • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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          24 months ago

          Me? Honestly, I think it would be obvious to any discerning listener what music is actually made by a person, and what music is AI generated, but really, there’s so much music out there of wildly varying quality thanks to accessibility of production tools these days, it probably is literally impossible to tell the difference anymore.

          • @can@sh.itjust.works
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            44 months ago

            I think it would be obvious to any discerning listener what music is actually made by a person

            I’m not so sure anymore. Udio’s output is more obvious but Suno has gotten scarily good. I’ll still always crave the human element though and I make my music for myself.

    • @lemmyingly@lemm.ee
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      Based on your numbers, ~260k plays per dollar. The person in the submission would have to get ~2600 billion plays to get $10 million.

      Something doesn’t seem right with those numbers.

      There are people on forums doing the same thing as the person in the submission. 1 person with ~30 phones can generate about 15-20k streams in a day doing it manually.

      • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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        44 months ago

        Maybe some kind of increasing scale for revenue depending on larger numbers of listens.

        My break down by track is pretty inconsistent, too. I’ve got a single track with over a million listen that made me 36 cents. My most popular track has over 4M listens, and it’s responsible for half that $45. Distrokid doesn’t say which streaming service that revenue comes from, either. Some pay more than others, I imagine.

        • @lemmyingly@lemm.ee
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          24 months ago

          Do you pay them any money to have the songs on the platforms?

          If not, I wonder if they charge you a fee but only deduct their fee from your earnings. So if you don’t get plays then they don’t ask for money. And the break even point is at around 1 million plays. Just a theory of course; I’m sure it’s all stated in the fine print.

          • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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            14 months ago

            I pay Distrokid ~$20 a year to distribute my music to a lot of streaming services, but I do not pay individual streaming services. I never really expected much return. I wasn’t disappointed! Haha!

            • @lemmyingly@lemm.ee
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              24 months ago

              I was just curious about why 4 million plays is ~$20 and 1 million plays is less than a dollar.

              • @Underwaterbob@lemm.ee
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                14 months ago

                The best I can figure is that the 4M$20 track was popular on a streaming service that pays better, and vice versa for whatever reason.

  • @ours@lemmy.world
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    94 months ago

    to head-scratchers like “Calorie Event,” “Calms Scorching,” and “Calypso Xored.”

    As a fan of the Osees, those sound perfectly normal.

  • @Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    14 months ago

    there needs to be a law that in order to sell something in a store a real person needs to examine it.

  • @jordanlund@lemmy.world
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    1404 months ago

    Not sure how this is a crime… breach of TOS, sure, but a crime?

    What law is being broken here?

    If his fake bands are being paid for bot clicks, that’s a problem for the platforms to figure out. They need to examine their TOS.

    • @Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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      574 months ago

      What law is being broken here?

      He stepped onto the rich people’s turf. We plebs are supposed to stay in our thatch huts beyond their line of sight.

      Straight to jail.

    • @sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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      4 months ago

      It’s fraud by false representation the U.K. Fraud is basically whenever you misuse a system for undue profit. The terms are very broad. “You know it when you see it” kind of thing.

      • @shani66@ani.social
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        34 months ago

        So, in the u.k., it’s just one of those “we keep this handy to hurt the uppity poors” laws?

        • @sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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          Probably the opposite actually. Almost all white collar crime falls in under fraud. The crimes of the desperate, the poor or the wicked usually fall into a few, clear categories around harming others physically.

    • @Tire@lemmy.ml
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      1054 months ago

      Try to overthrow the US government? You can still be president. Break a companies arbitrary TOS? Police are at your door to take you away for a long time.

    • @Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      54 months ago

      Its theft, which is against the law to do against a company or person. Its similar to trading in empty boxes at GameStop or sending back boxes full of rocks to amazon.

      Although most people seem to just pick a side based on whether they think that company should exist or not.

      • @LinusSexTips@lemmy.world
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        24 months ago

        There are far too many loopholes for me not to hate companies be they small or large.

        In Australia, “family trusts” are a sure way to write off a good chunk of your expenses (groceries, fuel and so on) while paying yourself a wage. If you really want you can cook the books taking cash sales for yourself too.

        Don’t forget about “taking” whatever you want from the company, and writing that off as a loss.

        Maybe I should hate people, but in a vacuum people are reasonable, logical and honorable. But once we introduce a “well maybe” or an “but what if I were to purchase fast food and disguise it as my own cooking?” my view of people becomes skewed.

        I guess, I wanted to vent about how fucked everything seems to be and that I feel powerless to do anything about it. GameStop as a company probably deserve the rocks in boxes, Amazon deserve them too, all because people are running those companies.

        I’m not above greed, but I’d like to think / feel that I put out more than I take and it seems quite uncommon in our modern society.

        • @Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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          14 months ago

          People will use whatever tools available to them. If their community supports it they will do it publicly, if not they will hide it. Drug use is a great example in some cases.

          If Australia allows people to convert their families to a company just to avoid taxes, then thats on the government to fix, not the people to stop doing.

          As long as there is no UBI there will always be pressure to use all tools available when things get hard.

    • @ulterno@lemmy.kde.social
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      14 months ago

      What law is being broken here?

      The law of “don’t take money from the rich and powerful; only they take their your money”.

    • @futatorius@lemm.ee
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      Gaining money from someone else by lying and/or deception. The legal term for that is fraud-- in this case, wire fraud.

    • @RecluseRamble@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      164 months ago

      Not sure how this is a crime… breach of TOS, sure, but a crime?

      What law is being broken here?

      Not curious enough to actually read the article, eh?

      Indicted on three counts involving money laundering and wire fraud

      One may argue about money laundering but it’s pretty clearly fraud.

      • @PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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        124 months ago

        That’s just a generic indictment. And it’s allegedly. How do you perform wire fraud if a corporation legally paid you for a service?

        • @jacksilver@lemmy.world
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          Yeah I read another article on this and it’s very unclear what was illegal. If I had to guess they’re getting him on the technicalities of the process rather than on the actual streaming.

          Edit: so I looked it up and realized wire fraud is “electronic” fraud, not bank wiring - Online definition

          Which given the way the guy did it definitely seems to meet that definition.

    • @Tire@lemmy.ml
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      84 months ago

      If he already had millions in the bank the lawyers would have made this go away before anyone in the public would have noticed.

  • @Sanctus@lemmy.world
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    1304 months ago

    This is what Spotify was made for so I dont really see the issue. He made the music and the listeners, just look at that engagement you love so much!

  • @PersnickityPenguin@lemm.ee
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    734 months ago

    How is this illegal? Sounds legit to me.

    I use AI to answer ai generated emails at work all the time. I also use AI to design buildings that will never house people, but computer systems. It’s all a shell game folks!!!

    • @Scolding7300@lemmy.world
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      334 months ago

      Probably the bots listening part. The point for the royalties is to get people to use the software and pay for it

      • @JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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        194 months ago

        Guess they’ll have to shut down reddit since they have their analytics boosted by large amounts of bot activity.

        The whole point of advertisers paying reddit for ad space is so people will see the ads.

        • @Scolding7300@lemmy.world
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          If the ad agencies don’t like that then yeah they should fine Reddit or get compensated for Reddit claiming they’re more popular than they are. I don’t see the counterpoint

          (Unless it wasn’t a counterpoint)

          • @JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee
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            54 months ago

            It was more or less a throw away comment pointing out that rich people and corporations don’t get legally held accountable for the same transgressions the same way normal people do.

            Rules for thee but not for me with this crap is getting tiresome.

    • @Plopp@lemmy.world
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      -34 months ago

      Of course it would have been possible. It would have been possible even like 100 years ago because we had the same alphabet and newspapers and headlines were a thing.

    • Beacon
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      234 months ago

      Aside from “ai” it was just as possible 5 years ago. There have been algorithmic random music generators around for at least a decade, and click bots have been around since at least the 90s