this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
1091 points (99.0% liked)

Technology

60036 readers
2730 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 content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  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, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
L3s@fry.gs
L4s@fry.gs
L4s@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world
1091
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
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
[–] 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.