American jailed for commanding 10,000 bots to stream his own AI-generated songs

An American man, Michael Smith, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay an $8 million fine for his involvement in a fraudulent AI-assisted music streaming scheme. The case arose after Smith was charged in September 2024 with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a charge he pleaded guilty to in March 2026.

FBI investigators launched a lengthy inquiry into Smith's operation, which reportedly garnered more than $8 million in fraudulent royalty payments. The operation became increasingly sophisticated between 2017 and 2024, with Smith creating thousands of fake streaming accounts on platforms such as Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.

At the height of his fraud, Smith allegedly commanded 10,000 bots to continuously stream his own AI-generated songs. In one stark example, in April 2023, Smith's bot accounts generated $80.9 million in royalty payments from streaming millions of times his AI-generated music. This dwarfs even the total streams Swift's entire catalog received in the same month, which amounted to just 9.3 million streams on YouTube Music.

The con artist's method was simple yet effective. He generated thousands of AI-generated songs to host on these services, making the fraudulent streams appear legitimate. It is estimated that his AI-generated songs were streamed billions of times during the lifetime of the fraud scheme.

As reported by the US Attorney's Office, Smith's fraudulent operation was an egregious abuse of super-intelligence for fraudulent gain. The scheme ultimately resulted in Smith paying $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture and serving two years of supervised release following his 18-month prison sentence.