1084

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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

I think you're confused about who got hurt by the scheme. Billion dollar streaming platforms fucking over artists don't need to be defended.

Who's defending the streaming platforms?

[-] LordWiggle@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

If you read my comment again, you can see I noted that Spotify is in on it. They profit too from these schemes. All those bots listening to 30sec AI songs playlists are running on Spotify premium accounts so Spotify won't do anything to fight fraud. They take 30%.

I never defended any platform, I only defended the artists. So I guess the confused one is you, my friend.

this post was submitted on 06 Sep 2024
1084 points (99.0% liked)

Technology

58114 readers
1639 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS