Maybe a stupid question but.... what exactly was illegal about this? I'm sure there were ToS or EULAs violated, but what law is he being charged on?
this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
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3rd sentence of the article:
Indicted on three counts involving money laundering and wire fraud, the Charlotte-area man faces a maximum of 20 years per charge.
If you follow the article to the press release:
SMITH, 52, of Cornelius, North Carolina, is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
Ah thanks. I didn't follow to the release page and just skimmed the article, should have read closer.
Those are the charges yes, but how is this any different than what all sorts of corporations do
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It's fraud I'm assuming. They fake "plays" for Spotify to reward by sending payment, but these plays were people that did not exist. Spotify was paying for ghosts to essentially steam music
Facebook and other social media corporations use AI bots to generate "views" to inflate their traffic numbers to entice advertisers. They also use bots to piss people off and drive "engagement.". Which is also fraud.
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Wow. I'm a hobbyist musician. I have ~12 million listens across various streaming services and have made a whopping $45 in the two years since I finally released ~25 years worth of material. (Which is a lot of why it's my hobby and not a living.)
I can't imagine the numbers this guy had to pull off to make that much.
I have ~12 million listens across various streaming services
The great thing about bots is that they can listen to every song on file, 24/7/365, and you can spin up as many of them as you like. 12 million is nothing.
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Indicted on three counts involving money laundering and wire fraud
Oops. Picked on the big dogs by playing their own game.
Seriously though, probably more going on than what we read here.
And he thought he could get away with it without bribing the politicians!
The guy sounds like a great entrepreneur.
If he already had millions in the bank the lawyers would have made this go away before anyone in the public would have noticed.
i mean this is the system we got set up isnt it?
Not sure how this is a crime... breach of TOS, sure, but a crime?
What law is being broken here?
If his fake bands are being paid for bot clicks, that's a problem for the platforms to figure out. They need to examine their TOS.
Not sure how this is a crime... breach of TOS, sure, but a crime?
What law is being broken here?
Not curious enough to actually read the article, eh?
Indicted on three counts involving money laundering and wire fraud
One may argue about money laundering but it's pretty clearly fraud.
That's just a generic indictment. And it's allegedly. How do you perform wire fraud if a corporation legally paid you for a service?
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Try to overthrow the US government? You can still be president. Break a companies arbitrary TOS? Police are at your door to take you away for a long time.
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I'm not a lawyer but this sounds like a pretty textbook definition of fraudulent business practice to me.
I would assume it is Fraud
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How is this illegal? Sounds legit to me.
I use AI to answer ai generated emails at work all the time. I also use AI to design buildings that will never house people, but computer systems. It's all a shell game folks!!!
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bro found a glitch in the system
SMITH created thousands of accounts on the Streaming Platforms (the “Bot Accounts”) that he could use to stream songs. He then used software to cause the Bot Accounts to continuously stream songs that he owned. At a certain point in the charged time period, SMITH estimated that he could use the Bot Accounts to generate approximately 661,440 streams per day, yielding annual royalties of $1,207,128.
From the original press release: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence
Kinda funny how the term "AI" drowns out all rational thought and reading comprehension. Of course, that's why it's there in the clickbait headline. I avoid news sources that pull that sort of thing. I don't appreciate being manipulated.