US man given prison sentence for bot-farming music streams

Posted by cdrnsf 21 hours ago

US man given prison sentence for bot-farming music streams(thequietus.com)

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-man-sent...

60 points | 97 commentspage 2

bear141 2 hours ago|

The part saying he robbed streams from legitimate artists and fans is quite stupid but expected in a case like this.

Dylan16807 2 hours ago||

It says he robbed royalty payments which is true because of the way most of these services distribute royalties. All listens go into a global pool and count the same amount. So if you listen 20 hours a day, you control not only the royalty payments from your subscription but the royalty payments from several other people's subscriptions.

iamacyborg 2 hours ago||

If there was a sane payment system for spotify it would be literally impossible for that to be the case.

PHGamer 1 hour ago||

the crime isnt the AI music its the fake views isnt it? i hate how the titles are being framed here

Barrin92 1 hour ago||

"Taylor Swift received 9.3 million streams on YouTube Music from family plan streams in April 2023., In the same month, Smith’s bot accounts used family plans to fraudulently stream his AI-generated music 80.9 million times."

what always fascinates me about crime like this is, if this guy hadn't tried to make 8 million dollars with 10k bot accounts and boosted himself straight to the top, he could have easily made a few thousand per month. How are people clever enough to set this scheme up to begin with but don't consider that you maybe shouldn't try to alert the entire fraud department

fragmede 1 hour ago|

which is to say there probably is someone out there who is committing this crime and being less greedy and getting away with it.

OutOfHere 1 hour ago||

I wonder if he would have gotten away with it if only he had stayed under well the radar.

casey2 2 hours ago||

Sam Altman is hiding tons of evidence of OpenAI's crimes. DOJ please investigate

criddell 2 hours ago||

DOJ doesn't monitor this site.

Try here: https://www.p3tips.com/Drill.aspx

roosterIllusi0n 2 hours ago||

This arrest was in 2024. This is the last remnants of a justice system being sunsetted.

moneytide1 1 hour ago||

A digital society takes the value out of a place. There was a time when, if you did not Show Up, you were always alone.

ChrisArchitect 20 hours ago||

DOJ source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-man-sent... (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49995378)

2OEH8eoCRo0 2 hours ago||

How is that not protected by the first amendment?

LPisGood 2 hours ago|

He was doing it fraudulently to make money.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2 hours ago||

I thought using bots in a misleading and inauthentic way was free speech. What about Elon's stock pumping twitter bots?

LPisGood 2 hours ago|||

That may be true by itself. However, misleading and inauthentic speech to make money is fraudulent and illegal.

nemomarx 2 hours ago||||

Who said those are legal? I'm sure that could be securities or wire fraud.

seb1204 2 hours ago|||

I'd like to read more about this court case

yieldcrv 1 hour ago|

> SMITH pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud

I need this guy’s lawyer

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