Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

It's not clear that this is illegal. Violating a site's terms of service isn't criminal hacking.[1] That's been decided by a court. It's more like financial engineering.

This person did create music: "24. The AI technology that CC-3 used to generate AI songs for MICHAEL SMITH, the defendant, improved over time, making it less likely that the Streaming Platforms would detect the scheme. For example, in an August 17, 2020 email, CC-3 wrote to SMITH, "Song quality is 10x-20x better now, and we also have vocal generation capabilities. . . . Have a listen to the attached for an idea of what I'm talking about." They paid for thousands of accounts on Amazon, Spotify, etc. to stream music. Those accounts were paid for with real money, not stolen credit cards.

That streaming can generate a bigger royalty bill than the payments required to receive the content is a business model problem at the streaming companies.

[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/court-violating-...

There's tons of precedent for click fraud on traditional ad networks being classed as criminal wire fraud, with multi-year prison sentences getting handed out for it, and faking music streams to get a bigger cut of Spotify's ad revenue is just click fraud with extra steps.

Not a lawyer but while the streaming seems to be fraudulent, it's less obvious from the evidence presented that the generation itself was. Does anyone believe this sets a precedent for generated content in specific?

Ed: oops I see the charges have specific quotes about intent to evade detection

A hypothetical: what if you actually play out the music? Suppose you offer a car app which does something useful. In addition, when the car is not in use, it quietly plays background music inside the car. The music is audible if someone is inside the car, but is not loud enough to be audible outside the car.

Now use this to play content for which you get royalties.

Maybe it will turn out to be legally permitted “financial engineering” but considering they are accused of fraud, this Stringer Bell Rule violation doesn’t look good:

> For example, on or about December 26, 2018, SMITH emailed two coconspirators that, “We need to get a TON of songs fast to make this work around the anti-fraud policies these guys are all using now.”

Fraud is defined as deception in a business transaction for financial gain.

Sounds like wire fraud, which is illegal.

He was encountering challenges defeating their "anti-fraud" technology. Thus he knew it sounded like fraud to the victim services, and he did it anyway, defeating the controls they placed to verify the clicks were legitimate.

So, if I hire a bunch of employees to enforce a sites ToS and call that team the Anti-Fraud team then anybody breaking my ToS is guilty of fraud?

The guy lied for financial gain. That makes it fraud. An argument about "defeating anti-fraud technology" is not the leg you want to stand on.

I understand your point but it misstates the issue:

> For example, on or about December 26, 2018, SMITH emailed two coconspirators that, “We need to get a TON of songs fast to make this work around the anti-fraud policies these guys are all using now.

They are referring to anti-fraud policies as a general thing across all streaming platforms, not a specific named filter used by Spotify/Amazon/etc. Since they are referring to the policies by the intent rather than name or generically as ToS, this indicates an awareness that their behavior was ultimately fraudulent.

I understand it would be very different if the conspirators said “evade Spotify’s dumb ToS policies” and later Spotify said “actually those aren’t mere ToS, those are anti-fraud policies.” That’s not what happened.

They're naming those policies. That's what they are called by the platforms, and that's what "fraud detection" means in these cases. This is an "engineering" definition of fraud.

In the legal sense of the term fraud detection is impossible, since these platfroms are not measuring the intentions of users.

>"The guy lied for financial gain. That makes it fraud."

Isn't lying for financial gain is what almost any company does?

My bank sells CDs to me, at a rate that's clearly disclosed to me. What type of "lying for financial gain" is happening here?

I did not say lying is all they do. But if you are saying that your bank does not lie in the course of conducting their business I have a bridge in Brooklyn for you.

>But if you are saying that your bank does not lie in the course of conducting their business

Like what?

(And that is of course what is actually alleged in the indictment.)

But nobody charged him with hacking.

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