GoKawiilNorth Carolina man gets 18 months for $10 million AI streaming royalty fraud
Michael Smith, 54, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to running a scheme that used AI-generated songs and thousands of bot accounts to fraudulently generate billions of streams on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music between 2017 and 2024. Court documents say Smith worked with an AI music company's CEO and a music promoter, routing bot traffic through VPNs to dodge anti-fraud detection, and collected more than $10 million in royalties.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The case shows how automated bots and AI-generated content can be combined to siphon royalty pools meant for real artists, a vulnerability that platforms' fraud-detection systems reportedly struggled to catch for years. U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald's comments suggest prosecutors view this as part of a broader threat to genuine creators, which could push streaming services toward stricter verification of both content origin and listener authenticity.
- Smith used over 1,000 bot accounts and VPNs to simulate streams and evade fraud detection.
- The scheme generated more than $10 million in royalties from major streaming platforms over seven years.
- Prosecutors say the fraud diverted payments that would otherwise have gone to legitimate artists.
Source: bleepingcomputer.com, 2026-10-07
Published there as: “Musician sent to prison for $10 million streaming fraud using AI bots”
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