News Musician charged with wire fraud after using thousands of bots to stream AI music to earn millions in royalties

[Admin]

A 52-year-old man allegedly bought AI-generated tracks and then used thousands of bots to rack up streams and earn more than $10 million over several years.

Musician charged with wire fraud after using thousands of bots to stream AI music to earn millions in royalties : Read more

 

[Notton]

I wonder how investigators found out they were bots.

There is a similar problem on twitter with bots brazenly boosting boring tweets.
Seems like something feds should look into.

 

[andrep74]

20 years of prison for each charge? The only reason this is prosecuted is that rich and powerful music executives got robbed back. Saying "Smith stole millions in royalties that should have been paid to musicians, songwriters, and other rights holders" is disingenuous, because it's not like he reduced royalties for other works. The music industry consists of the doers and the takers, and technology has made the role of the takers (and probably the doers, soon) obsolete.

The real crime is every time someone pays a dollar per song download and the artists get only pennies.

 

[husker]

I wonder how investigators found out they were bots.

There is a similar problem on twitter with bots brazenly boosting boring tweets.
Seems like something feds should look into.

Possibly because someone involved with paying the royalties noticed an incredible streaming demand for music nobody ever heard of before.

 

[husker]

The real crime is every time someone pays a dollar per song download and the artists get only pennies.

I disagree. The artist is free to sell or distribute their music anyway they want: They still own the rights to their music. Using the internet as a method of distribution leverages an incredible array of different technologies that the artist had nothing to do with creating or maintaining. When you download a song for a dollar, you are not just paying for the song, you are paying for the incredible convenience that all of that technology gives to you. This is the problem with basing your income on someone else's technology.

If I have a space plane that takes you to a planet made of gold, you can bet that these shuttle rides are going to be expensive. The only thing that made it possible for you to get to the golden planet in the first place was my space plane, so don't complain that the ride is expensive.

 

[justarandomperson86]

Corporations using AI to boost profits: ✅
Individuals using AI to boost profits: ❌

 

[setx]

When you download a song for a dollar, you are not just paying for the song, you are paying for the incredible convenience that all of that technology gives to you.

Of course companies that sell you the songs don't enjoy any conveniences or external technologies. They work extremely hard pressing that copy key for the song that will give them endless revenues and totally pay your internet providers whose are indispensable for their ability to sell you anything. It's all fair, you know.

 

[Christopher_115]

Possibly because someone involved with paying the royalties noticed an incredible streaming demand for music nobody ever heard of before.

I wonder if people aren't getting that it was bots that were streaming his stuff, not actual people.

So he was getting paid without any actual humans listening. Totally deserves jail, it's literally stealing from the royalty payers.