AI Music Fraudster Gets 18 Months, $8 Million Forfeiture
Michael Smith used thousands of fake accounts and up to 10,000 bots to stream AI-generated music for years, federal prosecutors said.
Michael Smith, a 54-year-old North Carolina resident, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture for an AI-assisted music streaming fraud scheme, according to Tom's Hardware.
Smith created thousands of fake streaming accounts and used as many as 10,000 bots to continuously stream his AI-generated music, prosecutors said. His tracks were streamed billions of times during the fraud.
In April 2023 alone, Smith's AI-generated songs were streamed 80.9 million times on YouTube Music, nearly 9 times more than Taylor Swift's catalog in the same period.
Case history
Smith was charged in September 2024 and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in March 2026.
Between 2017 and 2024, he operated the scheme across services including Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
Quick answers
How long was Michael Smith sentenced to prison?
Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
How much was Michael Smith ordered to forfeit?
He was ordered to pay $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture.
What platforms were involved in the fraud?
The scheme involved Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.