this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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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 3 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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[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 83 points 3 months ago (4 children)

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.

[–] Bytemeister@lemmy.world 42 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Send me a link and I can get you to ~12 million and 1 listens.

[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago

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

[–] deltapi@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

How obvious is it that it's a bot?

[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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 4 points 3 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.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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 5 points 3 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?

[–] lemmyingly@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

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 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] Underwaterbob@lemm.ee 1 points 3 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.