Danish man convicted for generating $315100 worth of fraudulent music streams | Hacker News Reader

Danish man convicted for generating $315100 worth of fraudulent music streams

theguardian.com

20 pointsmyfonj23 comments

This would have been a complete non issue if streaming services paid, not by streams as a percentage of the entire cake, but as a percentage per _streamer_ streaming each song.

The argument in court (according to older reports in danish media) was that other streamers were receiving less payout. But if he only received money from the bots he set up to listen, then at most this could amount to a laundering operation.

But this would disproportionally help small artists with dedicated fan bases. We can’t have that! Instead they should get 1.0e-17% of the entire pie

Are you sure about this? I would think that people listening to lesser known artists would listen to more music overall, making each of their plays worth less - discovery itself takes time, music is likely a larger part of their life, and basic novelty from a wider variety means less getting bored with the whole medium. I'd say the guy in the original article is seemingly an analogous situation as a small artist with a dedicated fan base, so that he was able to direct $315k at his "artist" would seem to indicate that the current method is actually more beneficial for small artists.

He was sentenced to one year and six months – three months of which he must serve in prison – and the judge confiscated 2m Danish kroner (half of which will be taken from the man and half from his company). He was also fined 200,000 Danish kroner.

lol good ol' Norwegian justice system. This would likely be 10+ years in the US. It also refutes the common argument that lenient sentencing or 'rehabilitative justice' is a better deterrent compared to the more punitive US justice system. Crime would likely be way, way worse in the US if it adopted Northern Europe's lax standards of sentencing.

yeah, but then you have a very capable individual rotting in prison instead of giving him the option of being productive and positive for society the rest of his life

but crime would go up. a person rotting away may be a small price to pay if deters many would-be thieves

The punitive US Justice System doesn't seem to be as effective at deterring crime as Norway. There are other factors contributing to crime, such as equality of opportunity and income etc.

See https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/Norway/Uni...

At a glance, major crime in the US is much more common than in Norway. Although the total crimes committed per 1000 population is higher in Norway... I'll go down a rabbit hole detailing how that number was derived.

Causation and correlation.

Not disagreeing with you, but before you go down that math rabbit hole, you might want to double-check which country this took place in...

You might want to double-check the comments they're replying to.

Except it doesn’t. Just like dead junkies doesn’t deter people from doing drugs.

Education and social mobility are much stronger crime reduction tools than prison.

not quite the same thing. someone who takes drugs knows what is the safe dose or not and can estimate the risk. the druggie is in total control of how much to take or not take. deterrence works because it throws off the criminal's math due to uncertainty.

For users of particular substances it's a coin toss if what they decide to take is:

* what they think it is

* as potent as they think it is

* more well-traveled than they are, passing through N hands

Point being: they can know exactly down to the microgram how much they're taking, it changes nothing. Every day may be the day.

Trying to not be rude, I feel you're attributing far too much rationality to this. Their situation has no lack of uncertainty.

It's the furthest thing from their mind. They've deliberately and repeatedly signed up for much worse odds/stakes.

Rationality long left. Something is compelling, exceeding, these hypothetical deterrents. These people aren't choosing in their rational/best interest.

There was an interesting couple of episodes from the podcast Search Engine, asking the question “Why do dealers put fentanyl in everything?” [1] & [2]

The grim conclusion was that dead clients are a calling card for dealers. People addicted to drugs don’t think “oh crap, this guy might kill me”, they think “oh wow, that must’ve been a hell of a high”.

[1]: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-f...

[2]: https://pjvogt.substack.com/p/why-are-drug-dealers-putting-f...

> deterrence works

Citation needed.

Studies are pretty clear that harsh punishments do not deter. Likelihood of running into enforcement action is the dominant variable, and greater likelihood of getting caught does deter crime.

Yes, crime rates are much lower in the US because of the sadistic justice system.

Exactly, rehabilitation has been lost in the US justice system to corporate prison head counting.

> lol good ol' Norwegian justice system.

Denmark and Norway are two different countries

But they were unified not that long ago, 1814, so the confusion is understandable.

"I'd like to send this letter to the Prussian Consulate in Siam by aeromail. Am I too late for the 4:30 auto-gyro?"

Sorry, your high-tech solution has already left the aerodrome.

Can I interest you in a carrier pigeon as a fallback?

He flies good, his name is Fred, for express service, fill out this FredEx paperwork and pay at the window.

This must be why the crime rate is so much lower in USA than Norway/Denmark/wherever you actually meant.

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