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.
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.
He stepped onto the rich people’s turf. We plebs are supposed to stay in our thatch huts beyond their line of sight.
Straight to jail.
It’s fraud by false representation the U.K. Fraud is basically whenever you misuse a system for undue profit. The terms are very broad. “You know it when you see it” kind of thing.
So, in the u.k., it’s just one of those “we keep this handy to hurt the uppity poors” laws?
Probably the opposite actually. Almost all white collar crime falls in under fraud. The crimes of the desperate, the poor or the wicked usually fall into a few, clear categories around harming others physically.
They got Robert Maxwell for it. He wasn’t at all poor.
I would assume it is Fraud
I’m not a lawyer but this sounds like a pretty textbook definition of fraudulent business practice to me.
Not curious enough to actually read the article, eh?
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?
Yeah I read another article on this and it’s very unclear what was illegal. If I had to guess they’re getting him on the technicalities of the process rather than on the actual streaming.
Edit: so I looked it up and realized wire fraud is “electronic” fraud, not bank wiring - Online definition
Which given the way the guy did it definitely seems to meet that definition.
Its theft, which is against the law to do against a company or person. Its similar to trading in empty boxes at GameStop or sending back boxes full of rocks to amazon.
Although most people seem to just pick a side based on whether they think that company should exist or not.
There are far too many loopholes for me not to hate companies be they small or large.
In Australia, “family trusts” are a sure way to write off a good chunk of your expenses (groceries, fuel and so on) while paying yourself a wage. If you really want you can cook the books taking cash sales for yourself too.
Don’t forget about “taking” whatever you want from the company, and writing that off as a loss.
Maybe I should hate people, but in a vacuum people are reasonable, logical and honorable. But once we introduce a “well maybe” or an “but what if I were to purchase fast food and disguise it as my own cooking?” my view of people becomes skewed.
I guess, I wanted to vent about how fucked everything seems to be and that I feel powerless to do anything about it. GameStop as a company probably deserve the rocks in boxes, Amazon deserve them too, all because people are running those companies.
I’m not above greed, but I’d like to think / feel that I put out more than I take and it seems quite uncommon in our modern society.
People will use whatever tools available to them. If their community supports it they will do it publicly, if not they will hide it. Drug use is a great example in some cases.
If Australia allows people to convert their families to a company just to avoid taxes, then thats on the government to fix, not the people to stop doing.
As long as there is no UBI there will always be pressure to use all tools available when things get hard.
Gaining money from someone else by lying and/or deception. The legal term for that is fraud-- in this case, wire fraud.
The law of “don’t take money from the rich and powerful; only they take
theiryour money”.