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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 week ago by [email protected] to c/technology

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.

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[–] Sanctus 130 points 1 week ago (1 children)

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!

[–] RangerJosie 40 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Imagine something like a DDOS attack. But it's fans throwing AI listeners behind artists they love to boost them.

Imagine if fans shaped the music industry instead of the other way around?

[–] Sanctus 53 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Now you're playing with power

[–] RangerJosie 7 points 1 week ago

I firmly believe that VR won't have fully developed until we have power gloves that work like they did in those commercials.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

People would very quickly figure out all the adverts being streamed to those accounts weren't translating into sales, and they'd know something was amiss.

[–] lemming741 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

How do you prove that your ad campaign is working?

That's the neat part- you don't!

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/does-advertising-actually-work-part-2-digital-ep-441/