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 1 month 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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[โ€“] Blackmist@feddit.uk 34 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

If your business model allows somebody to game you like that, you kind of deserve it tbh.

It shouldn't be based on plays. It should be based on money made from a customer and divided between what they listened to/watched. But then you wouldn't make as much money from the people that forget to use their subscriptions, which is probably a huge chunk of their revenue.

[โ€“] Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Song names sound a lot like brands in the first three pages of an Amazon search results.

๐Ÿ˜

[โ€“] Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 points 1 month ago

Can I interest you in a FCVTRHJR HDMI cable?