An alleged scammer has been arrested under suspicion that he used AI to create a wild number of fake bands — and fake streams to with them.

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.

  • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    2 months ago

    How does that work though? Presumably he’s not paying subscription fees on all of his bot accounts, so they must be free accounts. I don’t use Spotify, so I don’t even know why they would have free accounts.

    Unless he’s hacked other people’s accounts, then that would make sense for the seriousness of these charges.

    • MentalEdgeEnglish
      3·
      2 months ago

      There are various methods.

      Spotify does have a free tier.

      But paid accounts can rack up so many plays they can pay for themselves. If you listened to ten tracks, but someone else listened to ten thousand, then your money barely paid for what you listened to, and almost all of it went towards whatever the other user listened to a bunch.

      There has also been malware that hijacks legitimate accounts… There’s even been recommendation algorithm fuckery to manipulate the relevant tracks into getting recommended/autoplayed for a bunch of users.

      • chonglibloodsport@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 months ago

        The whole system seems like a sham to me. If one artist has fans that listen 24/7 and another artist has fans that only listen for one hour a day (but that artist is all they listen to), it should be the same. Each person’s account should have its own “pot” out of the subscription fee that only they can allocate to the artists they listen to. Duration of listening shouldn’t matter at all.

        • MentalEdgeEnglish
          2·
          2 months ago

          I fully agree. Spotify’s payment model has been criticized for years, but they refuse to consider changing it.

          AFAIK youtube music works in the way you suggest, where the money from your subscription gets divided up among whoever you listen to.