AI Music Streaming Fraudster Sentenced to 1.5 Years in Prison for $8M Royalties Scam
Michael Smith admitted earlier this year to using bots to stream fake songs billions of times in a first-ever criminal case over streaming fraud.
A 54-year-old man, Michael Smith, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing millions in music royalties using AI-generated songs. The case marks the first criminal conviction related to streaming fraud in the music industry. Smith pleaded guilty in March to using AI to generate thousands of songs and stream them billions of times with bots, resulting in over $8 million in royalties.
Despite his lawyers' plea for no prison time, citing insignificant harm to individual artists, Judge John G. Koeltl ordered Smith to serve a year and a half in jail and two years of supervised release. Prosecutors emphasized that Smith exploited new technology to defraud streaming platforms and genuine artists by flooding them with automated bot streams and fake songs, thus robbing millions of royalty payments.
Smith was arrested in 2024 on charges related to using thousands of bots to continuously stream songs on Spotify, Apple Music, and other platforms since 2017. The Recording Industry Association of America and the Music Fights Fraud Alliance commended the sentencing, calling it a necessary step to deter streaming fraud and protect creators.
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