An alleged scammer has been arrested under suspicion that he used AI to create a wild number of fake bands — and fake music to go with them — and faking untold streams with more bots to earn millions in ill-gotten revenue.
In a press release, the Department of Justice announced that investigators have arrested 52-year-old North Carolina man Michael Smith, who has been charged with a purportedly seven-year scheme that involved using his real-life music skills to make more than $10 million in royalties.
Indicted on three counts involving money laundering and wire fraud, the Charlotte-area man faces a maximum of 20 years per charge.
The “royalty payers” are the streaming subscribers, and they pay the same amount regardless of how much they listen to.
The different streaming services have different payment models, but Spotify at least works by first taking their cut from subscribtion income each month.
Then, the rest is evenly distributed to the plays that month.
By inflating the playcount with bots, this guy gets a bigger share, at the expense of everyone elses plays becoming worth less.
None of the services have some infinite money glitch where more plays just means more money out of nowhere. How much you get for each play is not a fixed amount, It’s always based on how much money actually came in from subscribers, so anyone using bots to tilt the scales, is stealing from everyone else.