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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 2 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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[–] CombatWombat1212@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean I also agree that this seems like it shouldn't be illegal, but as per what you're saying, obviously people can use python for malicious intent, what do you mean?

[–] daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I mean that creators of a tool shouldn't be liable for a crime committed with that tool. Unless the tool was purposely made for doing crimes.

[–] CombatWombat1212@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

Oh my bad I should've read more context