US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams

Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by majormajor on Thursday October 08, 2026 @10:14PM (#50015146)

"Money going to one person through deceit that would've otherwise gone to others" has a pretty material utility impact on the "others," even if they're a large aggregate or if they're corporate interests/investors who "have enough money."

I lean fairly redistributive but through consensus and governance, not through fraud.

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Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams by dcow on Friday October 09, 2026 @09:34AM (#50020337)

It’s not about redistribution for me. I’m not of the mind “fuck big advertising and streaming any theft from them is justified”.

It was more about making sure we don’t punish people for something that would otherwise be legal if they paid humans to do it but instead used bots. And it doesn’t seem like that was the case here after more discussion panned out.

And also that we don’t ignore the minor but still real part of this that’s due to a really poor assumption that “one stream == one human”.

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