4 ms·

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 mentio

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

eddiewithzato 7mo ago
yes it’s fraud since you get money per listens
- prmoustache 7mo ago
  I see it as using the system provided the way it is meant to be used.
  - JasonADrury 7mo ago
    https://artists.spotify.com/artificial-streaming https://artists.spotify.com/artificial-streaming Spotify clearly communicates that this is not allowed.
    - prmoustache 7mo ago
      Yeah it is like putting a huge red button in the middle of an otherwise empty room with a small "don't press the button" sign on the wall behind you when you enter the room.
      - JasonADrury 7mo ago
        Right, yes, because the people doing this totally don't know that they're breaking the law?
        prmoustache 7mo ago
        Is no abiding to terms of a particular service breaking the law? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
jonathanlydall 7mo ago
He indisputably defrauded $8M from these companies by "tricking" them into giving it to him. Whereas with pirating by downloading a song, the "damage" is completely hypothetical, it's not like the downloader got actual money from doing the download and it's far from certain they would have paid the normal fee if the piracy option was not available. It's unproveable that the publisher actually lost any money from the activity. However, hosting a website offering piracy through listing of e.g. torrents where they make significant money from ad-revenue is clearly a case of you profiting off the work of others, but it's probably still a bit grey in terms of linking the harm to the rights holder. What's an open and closed case though is any subscription service where the website charges users in some form which grants them access to media they don't have a license to distribute and to which they don't compensate the rights holder.
- tempaccount5050 7mo ago
  Nah, that's insane. "You ticked our endolpoint KPI shit in a way we don't like" = actual crime? Gtfo
  - fc417fc802 7mo ago
    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 both "just signs", right?
    - lemontheme 7mo ago
      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.
ChrisMarshallNY 7mo ago
> metallica won’t be able to afford its third private jet Napster Bad: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fS6udST6lbE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fS6udST6lbE (a classic)
JasonADrury 7mo ago
Do you think fraud should be legal if it's only targeting large entities like Spotify? Would that make the world a better place?
- lemontheme 7mo ago
  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.
  - JasonADrury 7mo ago
    How do you see this not being fraud? Clearly the intent was to deceive Spotify and obtain money by means of false pretenses, or do you disagree with that characterization? What problems do you see in the indictment? https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.627522/gov.uscourts.nysd.627522.3.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.62... The steps he took to conceal his activities certainly seem to suggest that he was intentionally deceptive.

eddiewithzato 7mo ago

yes it’s fraud since you get money per listens

prmoustache 7mo ago
I see it as using the system provided the way it is meant to be used.
- JasonADrury 7mo ago
  https://artists.spotify.com/artificial-streaming https://artists.spotify.com/artificial-streaming Spotify clearly communicates that this is not allowed.
  - prmoustache 7mo ago
    Yeah it is like putting a huge red button in the middle of an otherwise empty room with a small "don't press the button" sign on the wall behind you when you enter the room.
    - JasonADrury 7mo ago
      Right, yes, because the people doing this totally don't know that they're breaking the law?
      - prmoustache 7mo ago
        Is no abiding to terms of a particular service breaking the law? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

jonathanlydall 7mo ago

He indisputably defrauded $8M from these companies by "tricking" them into giving it to him. Whereas with pirating by downloading a song, the "damage" is completely hypothetical, it's not like the downloader got actual money from doing the download and it's far from certain they would have paid the normal fee if the piracy option was not available. It's unproveable that the publisher actually lost any money from the activity. However, hosting a website offering piracy through listing of e.g. torrents where they make significant money from ad-revenue is clearly a case of you profiting off the work of others, but it's probably still a bit grey in terms of linking the harm to the rights holder. What's an open and closed case though is any subscription service where the website charges users in some form which grants them access to media they don't have a license to distribute and to which they don't compensate the rights holder.

tempaccount5050 7mo ago
Nah, that's insane. "You ticked our endolpoint KPI shit in a way we don't like" = actual crime? Gtfo
- fc417fc802 7mo ago
  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 both "just signs", right?
  - lemontheme 7mo ago
    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.

ChrisMarshallNY 7mo ago

> metallica won’t be able to afford its third private jet Napster Bad: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fS6udST6lbE https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fS6udST6lbE (a classic)

JasonADrury 7mo ago

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

lemontheme 7mo ago
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.
- JasonADrury 7mo ago
  How do you see this not being fraud? Clearly the intent was to deceive Spotify and obtain money by means of false pretenses, or do you disagree with that characterization? What problems do you see in the indictment? https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.627522/gov.uscourts.nysd.627522.3.0.pdf https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.62... The steps he took to conceal his activities certainly seem to suggest that he was intentionally deceptive.