this guy is my new hero

[Bill McCloskey]

A North Carolina man used artificial intelligence to create hundreds of thousands of fake songs by fake bands, then put them on streaming services where they were enjoyed by an audience of fake listeners, prosecutors said.

Penny by penny, he collected a very real $10 million, they said when they charged him with fraud.

The man, Michael Smith, 52, was accused in a federal indictment unsealed on Wednesday of stealing royalty payments from digital streaming platforms for seven years. Mr. Smith, a flesh-and-blood musician, produced A.I.-generated music and played it billions of times using bots he had programmed, according to the indictment.

The supposed artists had names like “Callous Post,” “Calorie Screams” and “Calvinistic Dust” and produced tunes like “Zygotic Washstands,” “Zymotechnical” and “Zygophyllum” that were top performers on Amazon Music, Apple Music and Spotify, according to the charges.

"The Bands and the Fans Were Fake. The $10 Million Was Real.
Federal prosecutors charged a North Carolina musician with gaming the system to win royalties from streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music." NYTimes 9/5/24

[Doug Beaumier]

What an evil genius! AI music is one thing, but programming bots to generate millions of plays and collecting millions of dollars from it. Wow.

[Lee Baucum]

Hmm. It's possible that Bill and Doug don't really exist. Maybe I'm the only real person on the entire Forum....

Cue up the music and Rod Serling's voice....

[Jim Cooley]

When it comes down to it, it's all abot the music.

[Chris Templeton]

...And people playing with each other.

[John Larson]

Seems he won the game and the industry (read: Spotify) is absolutely mad about it.

[Charlie McDonald]

It would have previously been unimaginable that real musicians could be interested in the topic. Lee may be right, and it would be the same situation for all of us.

It's so hard not to applaud such chutzpa, yet so wrong.