This conviction has nothing to do with uploading AI generated music. The illegal part was using tens-of-thousands of bot accounts to listen to them (and the ads) generating fraudulent revenue for himself.

This is just the same old view botting (aka click fraud) that has been going on for decades. The AI generated music aspect is irrelevant.

Click fraud is cut and dry wire fraud: Using electronic communications to deceptively steal money or property.

I'm not a fan of anything that happened here, but at the same time I have some concerns about the ability of large corporations to convert TOS violations into federal crimes. Streaming media vendors seem to get all kinds of special attention when it comes time to prosecute other humans.

This kind of fraud would be impossible if revenue from each subscriber is distributed just to the artists they listened to. Bots listening to thousands of songs would not make a difference in this model. And I would be much happier if my money went to struggling artists I like and support, rather than to the global top 10, of whom I never played a single song.

I don't have data, but my gut feeling is that it would make a significant difference to niche artists with small but loyal listeners.

The Indictment has an interesting section on the detail of how he did it (end of page 5): https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1366241/dl

> At certain points, SMITH had as many as 10,000 active Bot Accounts on the Streaming Platforms

> Later, SMITH attempted to sell his fraudulent streaming scheme as a service, in which other musicians would pay him for streams he would fraudulently generate or share royalties with him in exchange for fraudulent streams of their music

> In or about 2018, SMITH began working with the Chief Executive Officer of an AI music company ("CC-3") and a music promoter ("CC-4") to create hundreds of thousands of songs using artificial intelligence that SMITH could then fraudulently stream.

> using fake email addresses

What exactly is a “fake” email address here?

If I have three email addresses [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected], are those “fake” as well, then? An email address doesn’t have to reflect your real name.

How about when I use iCloud Hide My Email to generate a unique email address when I create a new account somewhere? Is that a “fake” email address as well?

Or do they mean hacked email accounts that belonged to someone else? But then calling them “fake” email addresses still seems weird wording.

So let me get this straight,

Big players defraud the common people -> no prosecution

Common man defrauds the big players -> prosecution

> The streaming service Deezer said earlier this year it is receiving more than 60,000 fully AI-generated tracks daily…

Wow!

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Flooding stream services with slop and autoplaying it through a bot farm is obviously bad behavior, but is it illegal, punishable with jail time (5 years mentioned)?

I see no victims other than large streaming services who failed to account for a changing reality.

I’m getting ‘because of torrenting metallica won’t be able to afford its third private jet’ vibes from this

Would people botting in video games get a similar sentence?

I’m seeing the future and it’s some sort of AI gray goo all over everything.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_goo

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