Feds say it's the first US criminal case involving artificially inflated music streaming.

I am just impressed by the idea and execution. Just wow. Too bad he took it too far.

sunzu2
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410d

Great use of taxpayer money ,🤡

They only take crimes against the rich seriously - what a joke of a country the US is.

sunzu2
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110d

The better people… Shiti organics just suck too much

@powerofm@lemmy.ca
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6012d

Definitely an abuse of the system, but I’m struggling to see where criminal law says you can’t make a bunch of fake accounts to listen to garbage music.

Fraud is pretty broad and covers most things that deliberately misrepresent reality to take money from someone else.

Yet advertising and billionaires exist. It’s not what you do, it’s what clique you’re part of.

sunzu2
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110d

Dont hurt the normies mate!

@bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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11d

In agreeing to be paid by music streaming platforms they almost certainly agreed not to do exactly this. Which makes it fraud.

Sounds like a breach of contract, which is a civil matter.

Its also cyber crime which is possibly why the FBI need to be involved

sunzu2
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110d

Corpos commit cyber crimes against wage slaves daily… Feds don’t do Jack shit about it … I wonder why this would in the land of the Law 🤣

@bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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911d

I think that depends on intent and amount of money involved, but I’m definitely not a lawyer.

Gamma
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1611d

From justice.gov:

SMITH, 52, of Cornelius, North Carolina, is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

@interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml
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11d

This is a ridiculous law, it might as well be called “money fraud”. Justice is a bad joke.

In a 2017 email to himself, Smith calculated that he could stream his songs 661,440 times daily, potentially earning $3,307.20 per day and up to $1.2 million annually.

Great idea, but why would you email yourself about it?

RBG
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311d

Bio…graphy?

veee
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2711d

I have a friend that I’ve tried to convince using a notes app, but he swears that emailing himself notes and to-do lists is more effective. He’s wrong, but to each their own.

@flying_sheep@lemmy.ml
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410d

I mean, if you treat your inbox as a to-do list, that’s not that far-fetched

veee
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410d

I can definitely follow his logic, but there are better tools available.

Oh, sure. I get that. Sending yourself reminders is absolutely understandable. Sending yourself documented evidence of your plans to defraud someone is entirely different.

@theneverfox@pawb.social
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210d

Recently, a bunch of people on tik tok found this “bug” in their banking app where you can write a bad check, then withdraw the funds before it clears… Then started crying about it when their balances updated

Dude definitely thought he discovered a cool new life hack

JustEnoughDucks
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411d

Google keep used to (don’t use it anymore) store your notes “backed up” by email. You could view all your notes in gmail.

Maybe it was something like that?

veee
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210d

I do vaguely remember that. Could be?

So when rich people do this it’s called “innovative” and “disrupting the market”, but if you do it FBI busts down your door for being a criminal. Sounds like freedom to me jack

@Case@lemmynsfw.com
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910d

I’ve thought of this, but don’t have the wherewithal to actually make a project come to fruition.

I’m also not a lawyer, but I’ve read multiple articles on this, and it doesn’t seem like any legal violation. Corporation got lazy, didn’t confirm where 10m in royalties went and under what circumstance, and got burned.

Finally a corp gets scammed by the common man.

I say good on him.

NGL… I’m upset I didn’t think of this

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