FBI busts musician’s elaborate AI-powered $10M streaming-royalty heist
FBI busts musician’s 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.
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.
Bio...graphy?
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.
The better people.... Shiti organics just suck too much
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.
Great use of taxpayer money ,🤡
NGL... I'm upset I didn't think of this