https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/09/fbi-busts-musicians-elaborate-ai-powered-10m-streaming-royalty-heist/
Feds say it's the first US criminal case involving artificially inflated music streaming.
I am just impressed by the idea and execution. Just wow. Too bad he took it too far.
Definitely an abuse of the system, but I'm struggling to see where criminal law says you can't make a bunch of fake accounts to listen to garbage music.
In agreeing to be paid by music streaming platforms they almost certainly agreed not to do exactly this. Which makes it fraud.
I think that depends on intent and amount of money involved, but I'm definitely not a lawyer.
Fraud is pretty broad and covers most things that deliberately misrepresent reality to take money from someone else.
Yet advertising and billionaires exist. It's not what you do, it's what clique you're part of.
From justice.gov:
SMITH, 52, of Cornelius, North Carolina, is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.
This is a ridiculous law, it might as well be called "money fraud". Justice is a bad joke.
In a 2017 email to himself, Smith calculated that he could stream his songs 661,440 times daily, potentially earning $3,307.20 per day and up to $1.2 million annually.
Great idea, but why would you email yourself about it?
I have a friend that I’ve tried to convince using a notes app, but he swears that emailing himself notes and to-do lists is more effective. He’s wrong, but to each their own.
Oh, sure. I get that. Sending yourself reminders is absolutely understandable. Sending yourself documented evidence of your plans to defraud someone is entirely different.
Recently, a bunch of people on tik tok found this "bug" in their banking app where you can write a bad check, then withdraw the funds before it clears... Then started crying about it when their balances updated
Dude definitely thought he discovered a cool new life hack
Google keep used to (don't use it anymore) store your notes "backed up" by email. You could view all your notes in gmail.
Maybe it was something like that?
So when rich people do this it's called "innovative" and "disrupting the market", but if you do it FBI busts down your door for being a criminal. Sounds like freedom to me jack
They only take crimes against the rich seriously - what a joke of a country the US is.
I've thought of this, but don't have the wherewithal to actually make a project come to fruition.
I'm also not a lawyer, but I've read multiple articles on this, and it doesn't seem like any legal violation. Corporation got lazy, didn't confirm where 10m in royalties went and under what circumstance, and got burned.
Finally a corp gets scammed by the common man.
I say good on him.