Man sentenced to 18 months for AI-assisted music streaming fraud

In short: A North Carolina man was sentenced to 18 months in prison after using AI-generated songs and automated accounts to steal millions in streaming royalties.

What happened

US prosecutors said Michael Smith, 54, ran a scheme that used artificial intelligence to generate songs and then used bots, which are automated accounts (like fake listeners on repeat), to play those songs over and over on major music services.

According to the US Department of Justice, Smith started in 2017. He used fake email addresses and fraudulently obtained debit cards to open thousands of accounts on platforms including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music. Software then controlled those accounts to stream music he claimed to own, which prosecutors said was largely made with AI.

By the time of his arrest in 2024, prosecutors said Smith had created hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs. He also spread streams across many songs so the activity would look less suspicious, instead of sending all the plays to one track at once. In one example from April 2023, prosecutors said his fake songs were streamed 80.9 million times that month, while Taylor Swift’s full catalog got 9.3 million streams in the same period.

Smith pleaded guilty. The court ordered him to serve 18 months in prison and forfeit $8,091,843.64.

Why it matters

Streaming services often pay artists from a shared pool of money. Prosecutors said fake streams are like stuffing a ballot box in a vote, it can reduce the amount that real musicians receive. The Justice Department also called this the first US criminal case focused on AI-assisted streaming fraud, which may signal more enforcement in the future.

Source: Arstechnica