Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme • Hacker News Board

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#51

Post by burnt-resistor » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:43 AM UTC

phil21 wrote: post #12

burnt-resistor wrote: post #9

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.

Which "spec"? Many specifications exist and not every MTA, mailbox, nor email client understands the latest and every implementation is guaranteed to have quirks, but here are the most common: RFCs 822, 2822, 4952, 5336, 6530. There is no the spec. Subaddressing isn't standardized, but there was a half-hearted RFC on that with too many extra features. How email user parts are interpreted is up to the MTA, mailbox, or email client. Plus subaddressing informally as a hack has existed since at least 2005 according to my rusty memory. It's, therefore, a de facto standard. Use it where possible to track down leaks of personal information, but it's likely to bite with some gotchas. I used to maintain a @{{name}}.name domain and email server where all emails went to a single catchall account without setup or subaddressing needed to disambiguate which source email correspondence was from.

> Dots are somewhat common as optional these days but not universal.

This handwaving tautology is meaningless.

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#52

Post by lossolo » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 10:51 AM UTC

JasonADrury wrote: post #48

twothreeone wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- AT&T “unlimited” mobile plans - Purdue Pharma's OxyContin push - Juul marketing vaping products as a "safer alternative" to smoking - Facebook's sale of user data to Cambridge Analytica - Wells Fargo opening fake accounts for people - ...

All of your examples are downright terrible, but perhaps that's to be expected with these sorts of arguments. > AT&T “unlimited” mobile plans https://www.att.com/plans/unlimited-data-plans/ There's a huge bolded disclaimer literally in the middle of the page which says "AT&T may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy." > Purdue Pharma's OxyContin push Forced to file for chapter 11 > Juul marketing vaping…

> Forced to file for chapter 11

How many Sacklers are in jail for what they did to people? None. Purdue pleaded guilty, but no Sackler family member went to jail. The settlement totals about $7.4 billion, with roughly $6.5–$7 billion coming from the Sacklers and about $900 million from Purdue. Earlier estimates put the family's wealth around $11 billion, so they remain enormously wealthy. Hundreds of thousands have died in the opioid crisis, ruined families got no real justice, and no Sackler went to prison... great punishment.

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#53

Post by 6stringmerc » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 11:19 AM UTC

phire wrote: post #11

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…

Right and it going on for years and based on his blatant communications, there was a minimal fraud control - deliberate indifference in my opinion - to the harm caused by the services exploited.

You don’t have a stake in this game, I do.

Indie rights holders like me only get a slice of the revenues after Spotify pays like 75% to the RIAA firms. He gutted our pool. I’ll never see any of the pennies I’m rightfully owed even with great info from DistroKid.

I’ve come around. Copyright is dead, effectively. Just in time too. I WAS planning to sue Smart Communications for engaging in wholesale copyright infringement at scale, as they have unauthorized copies of poetry I wrote in jail - I have proof and trapped an asshole ex cop working for them into admitting they did what I suspected - but I’m moving on with life, still wounded, still sore.

Oh well, much bigger things are coming my way than worrying about money. Little people stand on piles of money to look big. They will never be able to look me eye to eye, as I’m a giraffe by comparison.

Facts.

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#54

Post by randyrand » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 11:37 AM UTC

petesergeant wrote: post #36

randyrand wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In click fraud, it's the platform company defrauding the ads purchasers, by claiming the clicks are legit. All this guy did was break TOS, and find a broken business model. No fraud. Should have found a lawyer.

> Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice…

Not it’s not. Creating fake accounts and instructing them to listen to music does not generate any money. The actual money generation, the actual fraud, was carried out on his behalf when the platform claimed the listens were real and charged the advertisers for it.

Under the letter of the law, this is just a TOS violation.

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#55

Post by JasonADrury » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 11:39 AM UTC

lossolo wrote: post #52

JasonADrury wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of your examples are downright terrible, but perhaps that's to be expected with these sorts of arguments. > AT&T “unlimited” mobile plans https://www.att.com/plans/unlimited-data-plans/ There's a huge bolded disclaimer literally in the middle of the page which says "AT&T may temporarily slow data speeds if the network is busy." > Purdue Pharma's OxyContin push Forced to file for chapter 11 > Juul marketing vaping…

> Forced to file for chapter 11 How many Sacklers are in jail for what they did to people? None. Purdue pleaded guilty, but no Sackler family member went to jail. The settlement totals about $7.4 billion, with roughly $6.5–$7 billion coming from the Sacklers and about $900 million from Purdue. Earlier estimates put the family's wealth around $11 billion, so they remain enormously wealthy. Hundreds of thousands have d…

> no Sackler family member went to jail

Perhaps none of them personally engaged in conduct that merits a prison sentence? Which of the Sacklers do you believe should have been charged, and for what conduct?

> Earlier estimates put the family's wealth around $11 billion, so they remain enormously wealthy

Why wouldn't they? The company had been around for a hundred years

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#56

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 11:57 AM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #54

petesergeant wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice…

Not it’s not. Creating fake accounts and instructing them to listen to music does not generate any money. The actual money generation, the actual fraud, was carried out on his behalf when the platform claimed the listens were real and charged the advertisers for it. Under the letter of the law, this is just a TOS violation.

[deleted]

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#57

Post by xandrius » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 1:22 PM UTC

huijzer wrote: post #10

So let me get this straight, Big players defraud the common people -> no prosecution Common man defrauds the big players -> prosecution

I'm surprised this article made you realise this now.

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#58

Post by prmoustache » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 1:31 PM UTC

eddiewithzato wrote: post #8

lemontheme wrote: post #7

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

yes it’s fraud since you get money per listens

I see it as using the system provided the way it is meant to be used.

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#59

Post by lemontheme » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

fc417fc802 wrote: post #35

tempaccount5050 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, that's insane. "You ticked our endolpoint KPI shit in a way we don't like" = actual crime? Gtfo

There's intent, deception, and damages so it's definitely fraud. This isn't a mundane matter of creatively using someone's API in a way they don't like. He came up with a scheme to extract money from them. The ToS is the contract governing payments in this case (IIUC). It's the difference between violating a no skateboarding sign in front of a shopping mall versus a no trespassing sign at a military base. They're bot…

Oh I don't deny what he did is most likely a ToS violation. And under those terms, he should probably be forced to pay back the money.

But I don't see how it's fraud in the criminal sense. That's just my judgement as a citizen, not a lawyer. All I see is the shopping mall shaping criminal law to its own benefit.

As for the military bases, yeah, stay away from those, kids.

Re: Man pleads guilty to $8M AI-generated music scheme

#60

Post by lemontheme » Sat, Mar 21, 2026, 2:05 PM UTC

JasonADrury wrote: post #46

lemontheme wrote: post #7

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

Do you think fraud should be legal if it's only targeting large entities like Spotify? Would that make the world a better place?

You're presupposing fraud and illegality. That's what I'm questioning.

That said, some good can come of this in the sense that it will (hopefully) discourage these kind of schemes. They don't create value and they harm smaller competitors, who now need to divert resources to increasingly sophisticated bot detection.