GoKawiilNorth Carolina man gets 18 months for AI music streaming fraud scheme
Michael Smith, 54, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to forfeit $8 million after pleading guilty to wire fraud conspiracy. Prosecutors say he created up to 10,000 fake accounts to stream hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs billions of times between 2017 and his 2024 arrest, spreading plays across many tracks to avoid detection. In one example cited by the Justice Department, his bots generated 80.9 million fraudulent family-plan streams in April 2023, compared with 9.3 million for Taylor Swift's entire catalogue that month.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The case highlights how AI-generated content combined with bot networks can be used to siphon royalty payments meant for genuine artists, a concern streaming platforms have struggled to police. US Attorney Jamie McDonald's remarks frame the prosecution as a signal that authorities intend to treat such AI-enabled fraud as a priority enforcement area. The scale of the fraud also underscores gaps in streaming platforms' ability to detect anomalous activity spread across large catalogues rather than concentrated on single songs.
- Smith was sentenced to 18 months and forfeited $8 million in fraudulent royalties.
- He used up to 10,000 fake accounts to stream AI-generated songs billions of times from 2017 to 2024.
- Officials cited the case as an example of AI being exploited for large-scale streaming fraud.
Source: thequietus.com — Christian Eede, 2026-10-08
Published there as: “US man given prison sentence for bot-farming music streams”
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