11–20 of 73 posts
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.
> using fake email addresses What exactly is a “fake” email address here? If I have three email addresses petethecoolone@gmail.com, joemama69@gmail.com, and michael.j.smith@gmail.com, 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…
Maybe a "fake" email address in their terms is an impossibly invalid one, unowned one that cannot be verified, or a disposable verifiable one? I'm not sure. Fun fact: Gmail address prefixes can optionally intercalate a period between any letters. All accounts though must be remain unique after normalizing case and removing all periods. a.bc@ = ab.c@ = a.b.c@ = abc@, but only one of these can be registered.
Periods are optional.
Edit: Woops yeah, meant pluses. Dots are somewhat common as optional these days but not universal.
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.
Does this behaviour open the door for ToS being abused? I have no legal expertise, but I would expect in cases like this that everyone would rationally come to the conclusion that the defendant's behaviour was wrong and unethical and the ToS just made it easy for the plaintiffs to point out to the court that they do in fact explicitly forbid such activities, making it an open and shut case.
From headlines I've seen of around ToS enforcement over the decades, courts don't seem to just view them the same as a physically signed legal agreement and will not enforce outrageous clauses in them.
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 dec…
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.
He essentially defrauded $8M from media streaming companies, if the ToS violation is the easiest path for the companies to have him quite rightfully convicted of what is indisputably criminal behaviour then I have zero qualms about that. Does this behaviour open the door for ToS being abused? I have no legal expertise, but I would expect in cases like this that everyone would rationally come to the conclusion that th…
It's the advertisers who paid for ads to get played to the bot accounts, and (depending on how the advertising deals were structured) other artists with legitimate listeners might have received smaller revenue cuts.
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 dec…
This guy is a visionary, the judges just don't get it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe a "fake" email address in their terms is an impossibly invalid one, unowned one that cannot be verified, or a disposable verifiable one? I'm not sure. Fun fact: Gmail address prefixes can optionally intercalate a period between any letters. All accounts though must be remain unique after normalizing case and removing all periods. a.bc@ = ab.c@ = a.b.c@ = abc@, but only one of these can be registered.
That is all email addresses, it’s part of the spec. Aside from broken implementations of course. Periods are optional. Edit: Woops yeah, meant pluses. Dots are somewhat common as optional these days but not universal.
> using fake email addresses What exactly is a “fake” email address here? If I have three email addresses petethecoolone@gmail.com, joemama69@gmail.com, and michael.j.smith@gmail.com, 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…
So let me get this straight, Big players defraud the common people -> no prosecution Common man defrauds the big players -> prosecution