Mastodawn

Bruce Lawson ✅ ♫ ♿ ✌️♂️✊1d ago

A man used LLMs to generate hundreds of thousands of "songs", then used bots to stream them billions of times, to collect $8m in royalties. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-man-pleads-guilty-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence-0 Is there a better metaphor for late-stage capitalism than burning resources to make songs that are never listened to, then steaming them to robots that will never hear them, ad infinitum?

@brucelawson it's more than a little bit Devil's Advocate, but I'm struggling to see how this is fraud other than that it cost Spotify $8m

The money certainly didn't get diverted away from other more deserving artists. (*edit* apparently it does, as Spotify no longer pays artists per stream, but as a percentage of overall streams). It's only Spotify that's out of pocket because someone gamed their broken business model.

Fuck 'em 😒

(But of course we all know who the US courts will side with)

Alessandro Corazza 🇨🇦

Yeah, same - at worst this seems a violation of Spotify ToS for siccing fake listeners on their servers. Nothing was taken from other artists, and Spotify allowed him to upload the deluge of AI slop tracks in the first place.

Tor Iver Wilhelmsen 1d ago

@alessandro @WiteWulf @brucelawson The court, obviously, disagreed with your whitewashing of the fraud.

Alessandro Corazza 🇨🇦1d ago

The Court siding with corporate interests doesn't mean this was an accurate interpretation of the law. I'd like to see their rationale.

If the issue is fraudulent streams taking money from the pooled money given to human artists who publish on Spotify, then this same criticism could be leveled at all AI music on Spotify, which means this is all Spotify's fault - but many AI tracks have already hit big numbers on their platform.

@WiteWulf @brucelawson

@alessandro @toriver @WiteWulf @brucelawson

Here's the most recent superceding indictment, which has the government's reasoning. In federal court the judge must determine that there's a factual basis for a guilty plea before accepting it, so there actually was a judge's ruling in this case. [1]

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.627522/gov.uscourts.nysd.627522.44.0.pdf

[1] Per Rule 11(b)(3) of the federal rules of criminal procedure. https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_11

@AdrianRiskin @alessandro @toriver @WiteWulf @brucelawson I wish the same judge wrote up https://www.headphonesty.com/2025/01/spotify-ghost-artists-cut-royalty-payments-musicians/ with the same style and gravitas.

Spotify Allegedly Uses 'Ghost Artists' to Cut Royalty Payments to Real Musicians Even More

Real musicians are quietly being replaced by royalty-free fillers.

Headphonesty

johnny anhedonic 19h ago

@alessandro @toriver @WiteWulf @brucelawson yeah this is what ai is for, this is spotify’s long term business model. the reason they are suing him is because he got on their turf

Amoshias 1d ago

@toriver @alessandro @WiteWulf @brucelawson I like how you start by assuming that it's fraud, and then attack the person who you are responding to for going against your assumption!

care to support your assertion that it is fraud? it certainly MIGHT be! but you're definitely wrong about what "the court" said - he pled guilty, there was no court ruling in this case.

@Amoshias @toriver @alessandro @brucelawson the justice.gov website literally calls it “music streaming fraud”. There was no assumption made.

Alessandro Corazza 🇨🇦1d ago

Yeah, I'm not adamant that it wasn't fraud, but I wonder how listener bots are fraudulent (assuming "fraud" here is taking money from the royalties pool) but AI music isn't - especially when AI music is not labeled as such and pretends to be a real artist. The only difference I can see is that the latter doesn't harm Spotify - only human artists, so Spotify DGAF.

@Amoshias @toriver @brucelawson

Amoshias 1d ago

@WiteWulf @toriver @alessandro @brucelawson so the people accusing him said it was fraud

and your response to that is "case closed, it's fraud."

I hope you are never accused of a crime.

@Amoshias @toriver @alessandro @brucelawson no, my initial argument in this thread (if you read allllllll the way back) was “I’m struggling to see how this is fraud”. Someone else then had a go about making assumptions that it was fraud. There is no assumption, it’s a fraud case, justice.gov says so. That doesn’t mean I suddenly agree that it *is* fraud, just that I didn’t make an assumption that the accusation was fraud when I said I was struggling with it.

Read, the, thread

*sigh*

Amoshias 1d ago

@WiteWulf @toriver @alessandro @brucelawson you realize that I wasn't initially responding to you, right?

Alessandro Corazza 🇨🇦1d ago

The way you're quoting posts makes it unclear who you're talking to. I suggest adding a line break like I did here, so that we can see who you're talking to and leaving he others CCed at the bottom. I'd also suggest being less aggressive - we're just having a friendly conversation here.

@WiteWulf @toriver @brucelawson

Amoshias 1d ago

thank you for the formatting advice!

as for the tone advice I'm just responding in the tone of who I'm responding to:-)

@WiteWulf @toriver @brucelawson

@Amoshias @toriver @alessandro @brucelawson no, that wasn’t at all obvious.

Tor Iver Wilhelmsen 1d ago

@Amoshias @WiteWulf @alessandro @brucelawson THE COURT SAID IT WAS. Why do you assume the corporation runs the court? What is your alternative to courts? Spotify is a shitty company but why defend this asshole just because the target was this company? What if the target was a small company instead?

Amoshias 1d ago

@toriver @WiteWulf @alessandro @brucelawson saying it in all caps doesn't make it true.

the court did not say this. if you believe I am incorrect, please provide a citation.

Tor Iver Wilhelmsen 1d ago

@Amoshias @WiteWulf @alessandro @brucelawson The crime he was convicted for was "wire fraud". Which is usually used when someone commits fraud online. Seriously, are you angry the «business model» of siphoning what little Spotify gives artists into the fraudster’s pocket failed?

Amoshias 1d ago

okay, I think I understand what you're getting wrong. you aren't American, are you? you are fundamentally misunderstanding some things about our legal system. if you are interested, I will explain to you what you're getting wrong. if not, feel free to continue thinking you are right when you aren't :-)

@WiteWulf @alessandro @brucelawson

Tor Iver Wilhelmsen 1d ago

@Amoshias @WiteWulf @alessandro @brucelawson No, I think you are worthy of a mute instead. You are basically trying to refute what the statement linked in the first post says. Trying to argue semantics when what he did is detailed there.

Amoshias 1d ago

I asked you a very simple question, which was to actually support what you're saying with a citation. Because you're clearly not actually reading it. the linked page is a press release from the department of justice, not a court document. No court ruling was made in this case. the defendant pled guilty.

but instead of trying to understand where you are wrong or be less wrong, you're getting angry and blocking someone who is making you feel bad.

@WiteWulf @alessandro @brucelawson

@Amoshias Go touch grass.

@Amoshias Yeah, they did. He was charged with wire fraud, and copped to it.

Why do you seem to have this weird knee-jerk need to argue with everyone about every little thing?

@Amoshias @toriver @alessandro @WiteWulf @brucelawson

The court had to rule that there was a factual basis for the plea before accepting it per Rule 11(b)(3) of the federal rules of criminal procedure. ⁨https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/rule_11⁩

Amoshias 1d ago

@AdrianRiskin @toriver @alessandro @WiteWulf @brucelawson and...?

@AdrianRiskin This thread got a lot quieter and more civil once I blocked that jerk.