{
  "id": 12521512,
  "title": "A US federal court sentences Michael Smith, who pleaded guilty to using bots to stream AI-generated songs, making $8M+ in royalties, to 18 months in prison (Bill Donahue/Billboard)",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/a-us-federal-court-sentences-michael-smith-who-pleaded-guilty-to",
  "topic": "world",
  "section": "World",
  "published": "2026-10-07T02:20:01.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Techmeme",
    "slug": "techmeme",
    "url": "https://www.billboard.com/pro/ai-music-streaming-fraud-sentence-man-18-months-prison-scam/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": null,
  "summary": "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.",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}