A 52-year-old nobody made $12 million in Spotify royalties...

[@soundlearn]

I made a video further breaking down the AI bot problem on Spotify. It's more of a video essay style video, so if you're into that, check it out here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/nJuQgYqfbrmDbdE Also, just for some clarification, I see a lot of people expressing the idea that this guy is a hero of some sort. It's worth noting this individual was doing this in collaboration with an AI company. This kind of operation is not cheap and not realistically viable for the average person to pull off. Spotify are not the good guys, but neither is this guy, in my opinion. Greed is greed.

[@spazmodicusrex6629]

So... What happens when somebody targets bot at a legit artist for the purpose of getting them demonetized, banned or falsely in trouble with the law?

[@soundlearn]

@@spazmodicusrex6629 This is unfortunately also currently one of the many problems with bots on Spotify.

[@top10sandthings]

Hum... He literally did what they told them... You make more money the more streams you get. KZbin, and all the services say this. They talk about being genuine and honest but then at the same time remove people they dont like... based on whatever they can claim or feel like. Essentially, you dont have a way to make anything if they dont want you to. Someone should check the bot farms that work for TAYLOR SWIFT too. Is a stream artificial if someone or something logs into it like Alexa? What is manipulated.. or AI generated but the use of midis and sampling from sounds like rocks smacking together or strumming a guitar and covering that sound into ones and zeros. At the basic fundamental level... all people and all music artist copy. they manipulate and sample and then call themselves originals. Look at the charelston melody that dua lupa plays... or micheal jackson copying earlier songs. ITS SO COMMON but there are so many people who listen to it for the first time that dont know how to put two and two together either. Not even spotify and other streaming platforms. Lets be clear and honest for everyone... Labels and distributors are simply gate keepers who like or dislike interests and taste of music and either help make you famous or sabotage your career. Is it wrong to work on doing the work to get clicks? THIS example you did is that. His creativity created and generated fans... and then studied how to do what the SPOTIFY group put out. Watch Office Space to see the idea... shaving pennies. Sometimes you dont realize it. But its cool to see. THIS leads to a realization that its not sinister.... ITS a learned activity that is from SPOTIFY. FANS are similar to bots... they arent actually even caring to see the person or know they exist... they just want to hear them on the radio. The more people that pay out thousands of dollars the more they pay for farms like radio stations & bars. It isnt a conspiracy to understand that Spotify wouldnt encourage more people to go on their platform and stream music. No no the music industry is wonderful and there is no issues at all. They created this guy who wanted more money. Thats the result actually and the goal for millions of musicians is to make money. What is wrong with that too? This guy will probably end up working with the FBI or spotify to help them come up with ideas to kill copied music midis and trained tech on music... like colleges do to take money from people to hand them a piece of paper so they can pay debts for the rest of their life. The goal of a plantation like spotify is to have as many undocumented workers... the more you have, the more revenue you can make and more forward you can go with encouraging listeners and clicks. Similar to people who pick your cotton, more cotton picked and produced as a democrat, the more money you make... Same thing with Taylor Swift... the more cds she puts out the more people buy and she cashes in on farming them. Im trying to be pessimistic about this 56 year old guy who made the work to make the money that he found. I dont think he should be put in jail... but if they really want to they can remove the money from him and just ban him from spotify music play lists and probably hire him to work for them to look for others. Like the check fraud guy who the story "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN" movie was about. There arent any rules written for what he did yet. so he didnt do anything wrong except find a vulnerability that needed to be helped. If anything hundreds of thousands of people in poorer countries may be learning how to do this from them telling everyone on the NEWS channels too. Ironically when they told people someone is doing this and this is how... HUMANS go do that thing they talk about. LOOK at Soundcloud bots and stream farms and pay for click websites. THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF THEM made almost every month.

[@top10sandthings]

great video though too. Keep it up. we learn alot from you too. aka we copy what you say and manipulate the system so we can get paid. kinda ironic but its what all students do too. then we call ourselves original but we are influenced and like ai we train our selves on what things and experiences and ideas have already been done before. like learning a 4 chord progression... or banging rocks together on diffrent things and copying others song ideas and music and doing covers or copying a beat or melody from a keyboard and recording it... its just repurposing and the definition of stealing an idea. feel free to steal this and expound upon it. lol. Its like Kansas says... all we are is dust in the wind... everythings been done before.

[@skelovade]

learned a lot, well done video man 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@jan_divis]

Simple solution: sperad the premium money of each user to the artists that the user listens to only. This is what I mean: Now its this way: You listen to two bands let say Nirvana and Black Sabbath idk and your friend only listens to Taylor Swift. You streamed the bands you like 300times in total, while your friend listened to Taylor 700times. What spotify does is that it will now Pay Taylor form both of you like this: there is total 1000streams. So if you both paid 5$ for premium its 10$ in total. So now spotify will give Taylor 70% of it because she had 700/1000streams. she will get 7$ and other bands 3$. If it was the other way that the money from your premium will go only to bands you listen to it will be like this: Your friend listened to Taylor only so all of her 5$ will go to her. BUT you only listened to your favorite two bands so ALL OF YOUR 5$ goes to Nirvana and Black Sabbath! SEE THE DIFFERENCE! And now lets introduce your 3rd AI bot firend to the equation. The bot streamed another 1000 of random bs and didnt pay anything so there is now 2000 streams total and 10$ still. So it goes like this 1000 stremas is 50% so the AI streamed music gets 5$!!!, Taylor has 700streams which is now 35% - she gets 3.5$! And the bands you listened to had 300 streams which is only 15% so they will split 1.5$ SEE!!! So with this system from your premium 5$ only 0.75$ went to artist you acctualy listened to! (only 0.75$ because the 1.5$ was from you and your friend 2x5$) But if the money went only to the bands you listen to the will get the full 5$ ITS CRAZY isnt it?!

[@soundlearn]

This makes a lot of sense. I hope something like this is implemented by a competitor. I would permanently switch to whatever platform does something like this.

[@c_huntermc]

This is ABSOLUTELY how it should be set up!

[@damrat]

Except! I know as a Spotify customer I want there to be lots of music being made in the world so that there is music that I can discover. I would like to think that a part of the money I pay is to sustain the whole ecosystem, not just to pay the artist I have already found and listen to. The problem is that the current system is not sustainable for the artists currently making music, and your proposal only helps the artists that have already been found by real users. There has to be a middle ground somewhere.

[@wordboy-u1e]

@@damrat We need to return to a time where people value music enough to buy it! 20 years ago discovering new artists in your local music shop, buying a couple of CDs a month and really getting to know those albums intimately was an amazing experience. I feel that's lost on the younger generations and it's a real shame. I still try buy as much physical music as I can to both support artists I like and support new artists I'm less familiar with. But my younger family members cannot fathom the idea of spending any money on physical music when they can get it all for "free" online! Plus with the rise of AI the past few years it feels imminent that real genuine music will become a completely unsustainable career path leading to a homogenized and lifeless experience when it comes to music, I hope I'm completely wrong on that though! Have a good one!

[@lionelbouche5730]

@@damratif your songs are not being listened to in the current model, you’re not being paid either. The proposed redistribution based on what each Spotify user actually pays definitely benefits smaller independent artists and complete newcomers.

[@carsonphoto]

Old guy here, and I can honestly say that nothing has really changed much in the music "biz" in the last 60 years other than the technology used to distribute it. Before all of this it was the payola scandal where labels paid radio DJ's to play specific songs in rotation making them instant hits and the artists major celebs. It supposedly was outlawed. As far as artists making money, I knew rock bands in the mid 70's that released their own vinyl and never made a dime because they couldn't get any airplay. I also knew several bands that got signed to labels and were fronted (loaned) money by the label to put out an album (that tanked), and were left with huge studio bills. On top of that they signed their life away and were held to rigid contracts that made it damn near impossible to start another band or ever get signed by another label again. The only exception to this that I can remember were the late 70's early 80's punk bands that actually were able to sell records and merch and make some $$$ as independents or on small underground labels, but it was very much an underground / college radio thing, not mainstream, and they played grueling tours in the underground circuit. It's the same old story, the folks standing in between the artist and their potential fans make the big $$$. It's never been easier to make or distribute your music...and its never been harder to get paid to do so, especially with so few live music venues around these days.

[@damrat]

As an independent artist I just find the whole thing, the current streaming ecosystem, to be extremely disheartening. Spotify has created a model where artists are at the mercy of the major playlist curators. If you can't get noticed by them, your chances of ever getting found by listeners is extremely small. I don't know how any new independent artist has a snowball's chance in hell of making a dime. So when you add the instances of this kind of scam on top of it, siphoning away plays and money to BS "songs", the outlook looks even more bleak. 😞

[@moby11k]

Make good music then

[@officialWWM]

It’s always been that way! The industry has always had gatekeepers. Before streaming, you had to get your music noticed by record companies 🤷🏻‍♂️ At least now you can actually reach an international audience. You have to learn about marketing and how to use social media but it can be done.

[@officialWWM]

@@moby11kwhat does that have to do with anything? Success in the music industry has very little to do with the music!

[@Dante-ki4ol]

They've reversed the "opening" of music that the mp3 stream, store & share devices made possible 2 decades ago.

[@RealHomeRecording]

So it sounds like the way to victory is to become a curator and then put your music in those playlists! *Evil laughter*

[@alienteknology5390]

I don't even have a Spotify account. I buy my music as CD's or on iTunes, then it goes on my phone & PC. I've amassed a lot of music that way. Already way more than I can listen to. Honestly, why do we need these streaming services? It's not as if it's hard to curate your own collection. You just add to it over time. Added bonus... if I lose my internet connection I still have my music.

[@officialWWM]

Old skool…

[@BoltRM]

I Have access to millions of songs, even new ones, for $14/month + ad-free KZbin. Plus Google Home speakers thru out the house & my android auto by merely asking it to play my choices. And yes I have hundreds of cds & vinyls, but those are in boxes.

[@OU81TWO]

I think it has a lot to do with convenience and access.

[@alienteknology5390]

@@OU81TWO Fair enough. But if people are too lazy to even download an album onto their phone, I don't know what to say. But in the end it will result in lazy music.

[@AI-Wire]

You should know that engagement can also be gamed too.

[@gordonleeweaver7955]

I'm just gonna throw some gasoline on the conspiratorial fire. Has anyone (other than a major record label) done the math to see whether the number of plays artists in the top 1% get makes sense? My paranoid worry is that major record labels could hire bot farms to boost numbers for their artists and have enough leverage over Spotify to do so with no resistance. And if the number of plays in the top 1 percent are significantly inflated then the artists Spotify currently considers not worth paying might actually be generating a statistically more important portion of total "real" plays.

[@duncan-rmi]

it's how the business has worked for decades- only the technology has changed.

[@SaruBeatz]

thats not even a conspiracy especially a couple years ago when the majors were also big shareholders of spotify. So in the end the investors got finessed and spotify and the majors made big bucks

[@ImaginationBlue]

You miss the forest for the trees here. I see this as brilliant cultural satire: he has parodied the utterly hollow, robotic way in which songs are now generated, promoted, and shoved down the pipe. He also made himself rich doing it. Delicious. That he's little more than a con man is beside the point. The situation as a whole is still a beautiful parody, and a much deserved one. If people find this story offensive, they should focus on the utterly hollow and false corporate profiteering system that fails to deliver real music, organically evolved (due to popularity and requests), to be a genuine hit.

[@soundlearn]

Fair point!

[@germanher7528]

Spotify is a company that doesnt make money... but its CEO has become a Billionaire...

[@dirk-lorenz.matthiesen]

5:44 "How will Spotify remain a sustainable place for independent artists to release their music?" - has Spotify ever been that place?

[@149315Nico]

I’m pretty certain this is like the Volkswagen diesel scandal, Spotify themselves used this, now some poor scapegoat has gotta go to jail for them

[@medula]

The money that is being stolen is taken out of Spotify's pocket. That money was never going to legit artists.

[@PyraminxstarsHD]

I misread and thought this had 329k views, not only 329. Very well made video, keep it up!

[@flamesintheattic]

I'm sure there's zillions of bots. This guy was just uncreative and greedy.

[@Gearhart_Music]

This guy figured out how to game the system. It just happened to be illegal.

[@WilliamAshleyOnline]

@@Gearhart_Music what are the odds of that?

[@ricktheexplorer]

I remember when there were no distributors, and Apple Music wouldn't let me on their platform. Then Taylor said something, and we were all allowed to upload our music. Doesn't matter. Music used to only be done by people the record labels picked. If you didn't make it in your early 20's, you went and worked at the department store or waiting tables; you went and did something else with your life, with the radio playing in the background. Now, we have life long musicians like myself, with no hope of a record or radio deal, still playing, making my music and distributing it like I'm Jimmy Page with $0.16 cents per month from Spotify. We have 7 albums, and I run ads on google and facebook with hundreds of thousands of views over 82 songs, for $0.16 cents a month off of streams to show for it. I pay to have people listen to my songs. That's not bad; music needs promotion. The only money for someone like me in music is to go play live a bunch of cover songs. I'm not going to do that. When we were kids, we started practicing our instruments thinking we would get Lamborghini money as musicians. The industry changed, now it's flooded and pays nothing, except for the headliners of the planet. They sign away 96% of their money, don't own or write the songs, and suck as musicians in Rap, Country & Pop Country: the only music America listens to. I don't even make that kind of music. If they don't want to go on tour every day of the year, they get kicked out of their rented MTV Cribs mansion, and they find another no-talent, no-brain puppet to top the Music Charts. Music is for free now; Lars lost.

[@Commutinyyyy]

This is why parents want their kids to become an engineer rather than a musician. 😂

[@officialWWM]

I’m a musician and I would much rather my son become an engineer!

[@TheVelvetVoices]

in a few years even engineers will lose their jobs to Ai!

[@Commutinyyyy]

@@officialWWM i wouldn't have my child become an engineer, unless they really are interested in it or have an inclination towards it. In these times where one can ascertain a child's aptitude and psychometry, why let a child be limited to the perspective of their parents? We have a chance to do better by the future generations......btw, i have also worked as an educator 😂

[@Commutinyyyy]

@@TheVelvetVoices well the obsolete humanity will be glorious.

[@officialWWM]

@@Commutinyyyy good point. He’s shown a lot of interest in becoming an architect but I fear that is a profession that will absolutely be replaced by AI. Actually, he recently said he was interested in becoming a barber of all things! In his words “it helps people, people’s hair always grows, people are vain and don’t care how much the spend to look better and AI will never be able to give you a decent haircut”. He’s 12 by the way :)

[@TheCatherineCC]

When the article came out, I immediately thought about your older video

[@soundlearn]

A friend of mine did too and sent it to me! Hence this video existing. Thanks for watching.

[@Ryan_Wiseman]

Spotify's 1000 stream a year per song requirement clearly is doing nothing to catch these carefully curated bot farms. You have to have a different approach to getting rid of bots that doesn't harm the artist if you want to actually curb streaming fraud. Spotify should be blacklisting these bot farms when they find them, and then distribute the money from those streams back to all artists. THAT would make it where artists would earn more money, not just the most successful ones. It's frustrating that only a small chunk of my music generates the money and stream data now (yes, Spotify doesn't even publish this streaming data through distributors like they used to, not even at no revenue, so that we can at least see these numbers even if it was for no payment)

[@paulflute]

i was chatting with a friend recently how has over a billion streams and is ranked in the top 1% of song writers world wide.. he barely makes minimum wage from this..

[@Clank-j6w]

He's either lying or has a shit deal with a publisher. I'm netting $700 - $800 a month with only 75k monthly listeners.

[@RobertKildoo]

The payout from Spotify are not equal across all artist though. The CEO has stated very plainly, unless you are one of the top on the top labels you are not getting an equal cut. they straight up tell you, if you want a fair cut get on a big label.

[@wietzejohanneskrikke1910]

How can it possibly get worse? We've already hit rock bottom. The exploitation continues unabaited and it's already impossible to generate an income from streaming music with exception of the happy few.

[@Necatuss]

It can and will get much worse, sadly.

[@MrSpherical]

Great topic!

[@tomkent4656]

IF Spotify can detect fraud on individual song recycling, surely it can do the same with playlists!

[@morizanova]

The main culprit is using BOTS . It doesn`t matter if song created by AI or human , if BOTS involved that violated any TOS of streaming . Hope people see this video understand what caused what

[@SamBrockmann]

If you still think Spotify should exist after this latest scandal, then you are the reason that bleach bottles have warning labels.

[@duotronic6451]

People failthfully believe the FBI and Spotify? 😂😂😂

[@mbotentoto5162]

Ikr lol

[@ThatBonsaipanda]

This scheme pales in comparison to the massive scam that labels are doing with streaming services and distributors. Artists that have been scammed in the past by signing off their songs to the labels are getting nothing while the labels rake in millions. And while legit artists get thousands of dollars from millions of streams, the labels, streaming services and distributors get hundreds of millions in revenue. [EDIT] lol, just when I typed my comment, you went into it in your video. :D And yes, Spotify is 100% running AI generated content themselves - it's perfect as they don't have to pay any artist anything. Thing that bugs me though is how did that guy make AI generated music back in 2018 ..

[@antonharmacinski276]

Someone did something real similar to this about a decade ago. (At first I thought you were going to talk about that. LOL) Except it was public domain music and got the licenses for a bunch of rando crap for something like $100. Most of them right at that magic 1 minute mark. Then they made a bunch of gmail accounts. Then created the spotify accounts and did the whole playlist thing. I can't remember if the guy was using a bunch of cheap phones or whatever to have all of the accounts running at the same time. I don't think they used bots though because it was all traced back to him and he had all the equipment at his place. (2:00 Guess why they adopted that policy? ;) ) But he made a few million before he got caught.

[@night_shade_]

Don't stream, sell your misic directly to your fans. This is a model that has worked for artists for thousands of years.

[@Adamremy]

Times change. I'm not saying don't do that, but don't discount streaming because it isn't going anywhere

[@night_shade_]

@@Adamremy When Snoop Dog can make more than 45k on 1 billion streams, i'll reconsider.

[@SteveTheDiva]

Yes, beginning with the Stones in 1300 BC

[@tommypospa]

How this went undetected by Spotify is the most unsettling. I'll stop now.

[@AuntieHauntieGames]

Wouldn't music licensing regulations get in the way of something like engagement-based payouts, since the music industry's regulatory bodies are only concerned with per-play payouts across all platforms (streaming, radio, buildings' sound systems, etc)?

[@paweprzewocki4137]

Wow. I was very skeptical of this story.

[@McFly.]

how is $0.092 a fraction of a penny? 5:20

[@soundlearn]

Look, math isn’t my strong suit hahaha. You get what I mean. It’s very little in comparison to $92.

[@xxxxxxxyyyyyyy]

It’s usually $0.002 per stream.

[@LynnColeMusic]

There are ways to do ai as legitimate art. This is not one of them. I'm glad they're at least putting in some effort to get this stuff shut down though. Even if it isn't enough

[@pgroslouis]

Actually artists just starting out are probably getting nothing because your song needs to hit over 1000 streams before they get paid.

[@Fenilee]

And that was a pretty recent change too

[@smthnew861]

That's it. I'm taking all of my musical sketches and uploading everything on spotify😅

[@SpaceyBlurr]

Michael Smith began collaborating with the CEO of an unnamed AI music company to create hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs in 2018. Also, for this year I've had the same amount of streams but the payouts have decreased month after month.

[@mybachhertzbaud3074]

These distribution models are simply more efficient at creating fraud and making music worse. Best to go back to basics and grab your instruments and get out and play. Most of the best music has been produced by hard work and struggle and unfortunately a certain degree of poverty and of course a bit of luck🤔🎶🎹🎶🎸🎶Play On

[@shambien]

THIS ❤

[@7177YT]

Spotify from the artists perspective is a scam anyway.

[@Exaltation-heliacal]

I don’t use Spotify bc it sounds of garbage. They cap at 12 k. Gro w up children.

[@j.r.90001]

Everything made by AI needs to include a virtual "stamp" that verifies it being an AI product, output, thing... It can be a hologram, code, whatever - but such that it cannot be abolished or override. Any intellectual rights related royalties should - and need to - be way smaller for AI generated art than for human made art.

[@SimGunther]

Reparations for wronged artists coming anytime soon? NOPE! The only way anyone "supposedly" could ever "make it" is to be a share holder for the platform they're on. YAWN!

[@paulflute]

did you say something about 'artists getting paid THEIR FARE SHARE of the streams they get on their music'..? you haven't looked at Spotify pay out recently then..???

[@asaniel]

Great video man! This is just horrible tho, I’m glad he didn’t get away with it though

[@isajoha9962]

1) The whole concept of playlists seems to be the root to the evil frauds. Perhaps a track should only be able to get a max number of plays being on a "global huge" playlist? After that no more payout the rest of the day/week/month. 2) "Individual listener" Spotify accounts does not seem to work to verify that there are no bots involved. 3)All released music should have to go through rights organisations to be able to claim royalties, Eg digital distributors should demand a valid code from the Right organisation to match with the track. If an individual/label registers over eg 100 tracks a day, the codes might need to be generated as illegal codes that will disable a track passing through the digital distributors system. As I understand it, art created by AI can not be copyright protected (from some verdict earlier).

[@darkflux]

5:20 $0.092 is NOT a "fraction of a penny". it is about 9 cents. still not great, but closer to a "fraction of a dime".

[@soundlearn]

Good catch, I added an extra zero in my mind.

[@falonsound]

I would never pay a few hundred for a few thousand plays. That doesn’t get me my money back at all

[@gregfarley7976]

This was a fantastically put together and insightful look with some good napkin math. Hope it gets more reach!

[@soundlearn]

Thanks so much for watching!

[@Commutinyyyy]

Royalty pool is bullshit.

[@FerdinandCesarano]

6:35 - "It does **RAISE** a bigger question." Begging the question is something else entirely, namely, a fallacy of argmentation.

[@soundlearn]

Thanks for clarifying!

[@FerdinandCesarano]

@@soundlearn - And I thank you for understanding.

[@IIIElijah]

The Lord is calling home the articulate.

[@jayc9184]

The main reason Spotify makes money is they make it impossible to cancel.

[@CraigAnderson-h2h]

Spotify's only purpose is to make Spotify money, and lots of it!

[@pyrexxprince3274]

U can’t loop a playlist

[@astargmoneynevaendz999]

Facts

[@buckiemohawk3643]

if he did a couple of thousand a year, they would not have noticed at all

[@who_cares848]

Im just waiting for them to kick indie artists off the platform. That way a bunch of people will have to switch to services that pay artists better and spotify can finally die.

[@shrewdagency6588]

No one goes to prison for faking views on online ads and we can be certain this is happening... 🤷‍♂ Defo a case for Mulder and Scully!

[@synthoelectro]

that alone 'is' fraud.

[@angelainamarie9656]

"Botify"

[@Gaven7r]

Step 1: Steal musical art and generate musical content through AI Step 2: Use AI/bots to generate fake streams Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit. And yet, artists get no reward or recognition for their work thanks this bs, and of course, platforms like Spotify that incentivize it (if you're a big label of course).

[@little-alien]

There's a few assumptions in this video that need correcting. Using the terms "sustainable" and "profit margins" here are not valid. Spotify has never made a profit, it relies on investor funding to keep going. Spotify's own financial model is not sustainable which also puts Spotify itself in a desperate position. I think I'm more fascinated that these bot nets have not been able to sink Spotify.

[@darkflux]

how will Spotify keep being able to pay artists more than pennies per month? easy, by upping monthly sub fees...

[@ricksimmons2098]

The shitty digital apparatus that was created by the advent of the internet made this possible.

[@HeyImKevin]

I’m of the opinion that scamming Spotify is a victimless crime, or at WORST it’s like a Robin Hood situation 🤷‍♂️.

[@JensGulin]

I suppose you can maintain that opinion, but the interesting part is that Spotify will keep their revenue regardless. The ones losing out are the "real artists" that will be reduced to pennies. You may still argue that the money comes from willingly paying users who don't really lose anything, and the main loss is for big music labels who didn't get their cut of the artists. I thought the praising of KZbin business model was a bit surprising. Isn't that the same "trigger the algorithm" monetisation scheme?

[@alienteknology5390]

Sorry. But your statement doesn't make any sense. Fake bot streams translate to real artists getting paid less per stream. Factor in that the money they are stealing comes from account holders.

[@shambien]

If he had donated the robbery to the poor that would be a Robin Hood situation. Since he kept the money for himself, he does not qualify as hero but he's just another criminal, in my opinion, sorry 😔

[@myautobiographyafanfic1413]

AI music in 2018 was really noticeable.

[@Sakima205]

why wasn't he ever trending with those kind of numbers?

[@soundlearn]

The songs were spread out amongst thousands of fake artists. So realistically, each artist probably only had a couple of thousand “monthly listeners”.

[@wolfgangdevries127]

A child could come up with this. But still.. get arrested 😊

[@BillyTheKidsGhost]

All the music on Spotify will be seen in the same way as advertising, and nobody likes advertising. I also don't care.

[@mr.k905]

"Nobody"? Spotify makes money on Spotify.

[@BenCaesar]

Looool "Ai bro records"

[@angusab3269]

Maybe just make it harder to make a bot account? ID Verification for every artist and user? Might be a pain in the ass but millions of dollars is a big deal

[@johnl5525]

What is the definition of a creation, and who is the author? If someone builds an Ai computer, and gives the instructions to create music according to certain parameters, can we consider that person the "author" of the final output, the music? do you need to use an instrument or your own voice to be considered a real author? what is an instrument? are DJs music authors? how are they different than the ones giving Ai the instructions to make music? at the end, lawyers and jurisprudence will give us an answer, and we may not like it.

[@soundlearn]

The problem here isn’t whether or not music made with AI should be allowed monetization. The problem is using bots to siphon money from the royalty pool. The person making these songs likely doesn’t care at all about music in the slightest. They are simply generating the bare minimum that qualifies as music under Spotify’s eyes. If they could stream silence to game the system, they would.

[@ibanezlaney]

If you use AI to create a song then you have not created anything to be paid for. It is quiet simple. You can't write a list of ingredients and instructions and sell that as a cake. You have to make the cake to sell it. Same thing. And then there is the fact that people who need to use AI to make a tune are lazy and talentless so morally they deserve nothing.

[@liampugh]

Well it’s that and all the ai generated music that comes directly from Spotify itself. Don’t have to pay the artist if they aren’t real lol.

[@DavidMadeira29]

I'm 52, what's wrong with it? Can't you count to three because of 72 Seasons?! I don't know. Namastè.

[@igorbeuk4068]

A.I. I don't believe it but if you look on EU intellectual properties regulations then it must be Algorithms no matter the Therefore control over Intellectual Property by law Music is done by people and only people can own intellectual property. Letting out new Nano Samples and track who is doing it is OK. Everything else is wrong.

[@marpleka]

ai is public domain, but everyone where i see & who do it-trying to cheat the system, fooling everyone, from coders to artists. USPTO strictly stated - every human pixel addition in Ai art must be recorded, everything else not protected, so have no value maybe except aesthetical.

[@farley333]

You completely left out big labels from the last part of the video. They have the leverage over Spotify and over listeners. As long as Justin and Taylor are with them, they will keep Spotify operational. ...and also suck all the money that would go to indie artists. So no, music industry isn't dead. Not by a long shot ... just the indies are not part of it anymore. Funny that nobody cared until AI started to hurt the bottom lines of those major labels. Only now you see charges, lawsuits, disputes...

[@JensGulin]

@@farley333 isn't indie by definition those "independent from the industry"? Then came the idea of starting your own indie label, and from there aggregation services that live on what you pay to be monetized and searchable on streaming services. So indie being outside the system is not new, and hardly the abuse of the point of integration either.

[@farley333]

@@JensGulin Yes. But vast majority of those independent labels are pouring money INTO Spotify, not geting them out of it. So essentially both you as an artist and your fans pay Taylor Swift and Daniel Ek. Some pennies might go the other way, but the main casflow is headed towards their pockets.

[@WhoWhoandZulu]

Naive

[@mbotentoto5162]

Lol AI taking yalls lil independent artists money? Ahahhaahaa yes i did!!! 😂

[@progressivehardindustrialslug]

I make (good) A I Music. It Takes ALL DAY to make a good song. You can't make 1000 GOOD SONGS in one day.

[@Taco_Starchild]

Who are the DRONES listening to this gabage?

[@juncando]

Are you sure this a true story or one that has been planted to deter people. Michael Smith seems like a very generic name. I think this is distracting from the issue that maybe Spotify is doing the same thing but for their preferred artists. A great fraudster will steal your shoes and then help you look for them.

[@wietzejohanneskrikke1910]

No, this is real

[@juncando]

@@wietzejohanneskrikke1910 Then I want the tutorial link

[@LemonsRage]

7 Psychos style.

[@ianbullock1110]

What is 12 million to them anyway? 60 years or someone’s life is fucked because you “stole” from a corporation

[@mikb5587]

I'm personally glad Spotify got rimmed. Disgusting company.

[@mttlsa686]

We feed the beast.

[@alienteknology5390]

@@mttlsa686 Not all of us. I don't have a Spotify account. I buy my music as CD's or on iTunes. Then I put it on my phone & PC. I've amassed a lot of music that way. Already way more than I can listen to. Honestly, why do we need these streaming services?

[@risingtide_official]

How is this illegal?

[@soundlearn]

The part that makes it illegal is the bot activity. These bots aren’t using premium accounts, but Spotify still needs to payout streams regardless. I forgot to mention that part of the royalty pool money comes from advertisers who pay for ads that play for free users. If those ads are being played to bots, they are paying lots of money to effectively advertise to no one. If it were as simple as the advertiser’s money going straight to the fraudster, I don’t think musicians would care. Maybe they’d even celebrate it. But, unfortunately, people like this are also making independent artist payouts lower across the board.

[@ibanezlaney]

It is both illegal and even worse - immoral. You might not have noticed yet but there are people out there who are so deluded that they think they are musicians who have created something when it is just AI generated garbage. Imagine how crappy the music world will become if every talentless loser who needs AI to write songs was allowed to continue doing things like this ? Polluting streaming services to the point you have to search for hours to find real music ? We don't need more talentless losers being paid for things they are incapable of actually doing in the world.

[@JimJones4Life]

@@soundlearn The question is what actual law was broken. This would seem to be a terms of service violation not a violation of law. However, I willfully admit I do not know if there is an actual law broken here. Curious!

[@soundlearn]

@@JimJones4Life I don't know law well enough to give you a proper answer but my guess is that it boils down to something to do with taxes, hence the FBI involvement. Would probably fall under "Conspiracy to Defraud". Probably something along the lines of "where's this money coming from?" and finding something fishy during an audit. Purely speculation.

[@JimJones4Life]

@@soundlearn it will be interesting to see how things progress with his case. What the streaming services call illegal streams would also have to equate to some statutory definition. The content he was streaming was AI generated so most likely public domain unless the AI was infringing on copyrights of some artists. You are probably looking in the right direction with the tax evasion angle. Perhaps, you will cover the outcome of this case on your channel in the future. Thanks for the content.

[@Chanelson2010]

The guy is a genius.