The songs that the AI CEO provided to Smith originally had file names full of randomized numbers and letters such as “n_7a2b2d74-1621-4385-895d-b1e4af78d860.mp3,” the DOJ noted in its detailed press release.
When uploading them to streaming platforms, including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, the man would then change the songs’ names to words like “Zygotes,” “Zygotic,” and “Zyme Bedewing,” whatever that is.
The artist naming convention also followed a somewhat similar pattern, with names ranging from the normal-sounding “Calvin Mann” to head-scratchers like “Calorie Event,” “Calms Scorching,” and “Calypso Xored.”
To manufacture streams for these fake songs, Smith allegedly used bots that stream the songs billions of times without any real person listening. As with similar schemes, the bots’ meaningless streams were ultimately converted to royalty paychecks for the people behind them.
When I first read your comment about this scheme keeping money from artists I was skeptical. But, yup! It is right there on Spotify’s website:
Now, granted a bunch of those “rightsholders” are likely big corporate record labels but your point stands. The little guy is getting screwed, too.
Though, adding to your final thought, I bet if it was only the little guy getting screwed and not the corpos I bet DOJ wouldn’t have cared.
See this video for more info about these scams and how Spotify is enabling them and protects them.