3 ms·

Honest question: what makes the botting illegal? Wouldn't it just be a ToS violation?

scblock 2y ago
It's fraud involving a large sum of money.
Etheryte 2y ago
Stealing money is illegal, the way you do it is often secondary to that fact. In many countries, hacking or breaking systems, whether digital or analog, is punishable by law. I'm not sure there's much of a surprise here.
- itake 2y ago
  I think what OP is asking is, the "system" says we will pay you money for every download of your song from our system. He automated the song download process at scale.
  - bena 2y ago
    The system says it will pay you every time a person streams your song to listen to it. That's not what happened.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      Guess it depends on the wording (hence the lawsuit). It's an open secret that so many "views" on such platforms are in fact inorganic. That's why the internet been ruined by trackers to try and reassure the poor ad companies can prove humans are looking at ads (i imagine as AI rises this sentiment becomes less relevant). This is definitely the highest profile case I've seen of this, though.
    - itake 2y ago
      He, a person, streamed the songs. I don't know if this person played the song over a speaker or not that he was able to listen to.
    - Optimal_Persona 2y ago
      Maybe if he had formed a shell corporation around his fake listeners, that would have been OK because according to the US Supreme Court, corps are peeps!
  - renewiltord 2y ago
    Yeah in the sense that the airline says that it’ll fly you in the air and the 9/11 hijackers just decided they’d do that themselves for a bit so why prosecute Bin Laden? It turns out that the other bits of the deal also matter.
    - itake 2y ago
      Was Bin Laden prosecuted? I thought he was just executed.
      - renewiltord 2y ago
        Well they prosecuted war against him.
jsheard 2y ago
There's plenty of precedent for ad click fraud being prosecuted as criminal wire fraud, and faking listeners is basically the same scam.
noboostforyou 2y ago
"Conspiracy to commit wire fraud" according to the FBI's indictment. pdf here - https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician...
immibis 2y ago
Apparently ToS violation becomes wire fraud when you (only you, and not corporations) use it to make money.
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  Citizens United ruling basically said that corporations have more rights than actual people. Sure it gives them "the same" speech rights as meat-people, but when you're a corporation you have way more resources at your disposal to get your speech to more places than meat-people can muster.
gen3 2y ago
Most stream fraud schemes like this use stolen accounts or accounts made with stolen credit cards. As for what makes the botting illegal, in this case its theft through misrepresentation. He was charged with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician...
- ericjmorey 2y ago
  This seems no worse than what Deutsche Ban and Wells Fargo have been caught doing. I think maybe his mistake was not doing this through corporate obfuscation at a large enough scale. Although Bankman-Fried and Madoff got punished with prison time, they threatened the wealthy with their fraud so steering clear of that has to be taken into account.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Pretty much. If you're a billion dollar CEO we called this an "oopsie". It's only a crime if another billion dollar CEO chooses to fight.
paulpauper 2y ago
money was involved. it didn't help that he incriminated himself with such statements as " We need to get a TON of songs fast to make this work around the anti-fraud policies these guys are all using now.”
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

It's fraud involving a large sum of money.

Stealing money is illegal, the way you do it is often secondary to that fact. In many countries, hacking or breaking systems, whether digital or analog, is punishable by law. I'm not sure there's much of a surprise here.

itake 2y ago
I think what OP is asking is, the "system" says we will pay you money for every download of your song from our system. He automated the song download process at scale.
- bena 2y ago
  The system says it will pay you every time a person streams your song to listen to it. That's not what happened.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    Guess it depends on the wording (hence the lawsuit). It's an open secret that so many "views" on such platforms are in fact inorganic. That's why the internet been ruined by trackers to try and reassure the poor ad companies can prove humans are looking at ads (i imagine as AI rises this sentiment becomes less relevant). This is definitely the highest profile case I've seen of this, though.
  - itake 2y ago
    He, a person, streamed the songs. I don't know if this person played the song over a speaker or not that he was able to listen to.
  - Optimal_Persona 2y ago
    Maybe if he had formed a shell corporation around his fake listeners, that would have been OK because according to the US Supreme Court, corps are peeps!
- renewiltord 2y ago
  Yeah in the sense that the airline says that it’ll fly you in the air and the 9/11 hijackers just decided they’d do that themselves for a bit so why prosecute Bin Laden? It turns out that the other bits of the deal also matter.
  - itake 2y ago
    Was Bin Laden prosecuted? I thought he was just executed.
    - renewiltord 2y ago
      Well they prosecuted war against him.

jsheard 2y ago

There's plenty of precedent for ad click fraud being prosecuted as criminal wire fraud, and faking listeners is basically the same scam.

noboostforyou 2y ago

"Conspiracy to commit wire fraud" according to the FBI's indictment. pdf here - https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician...

immibis 2y ago

Apparently ToS violation becomes wire fraud when you (only you, and not corporations) use it to make money.

CatWChainsaw 2y ago
Citizens United ruling basically said that corporations have more rights than actual people. Sure it gives them "the same" speech rights as meat-people, but when you're a corporation you have way more resources at your disposal to get your speech to more places than meat-people can muster.

gen3 2y ago

Most stream fraud schemes like this use stolen accounts or accounts made with stolen credit cards. As for what makes the botting illegal, in this case its theft through misrepresentation. He was charged with wire fraud conspiracy, wire fraud, and money laundering conspiracy. https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician-charged-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/north-carolina-musician...

ericjmorey 2y ago
This seems no worse than what Deutsche Ban and Wells Fargo have been caught doing. I think maybe his mistake was not doing this through corporate obfuscation at a large enough scale. Although Bankman-Fried and Madoff got punished with prison time, they threatened the wealthy with their fraud so steering clear of that has to be taken into account.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Pretty much. If you're a billion dollar CEO we called this an "oopsie". It's only a crime if another billion dollar CEO chooses to fight.

paulpauper 2y ago

money was involved. it didn't help that he incriminated himself with such statements as " We need to get a TON of songs fast to make this work around the anti-fraud policies these guys are all using now.”

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]