Man who used bots to stream hundreds of thousands of AI songs billions of times is sentenced to 18 months in the first US streaming fraud case
JUST IN: Man sentenced to 18 months in prison after generating hundreds of thousands of AI songs & using bots to stream them billions of times, outstreaming Taylor Swift & earning $8 million.
Context
The sentence sets the first federal benchmark for punishing AI assisted streaming fraud, a problem that drains royalty pools shared by real artists.
Michael Smith, 54, of Cornelius, North Carolina, pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Streaming services pay royalties per stream from shared pools, so fake streams take money from genuine artists. Polymarket posted the news on October 12, six days after the sentencing.
- US Attorney's Office SDNY release on the sentence, via Public
- US Department of Justice: North Carolina man pleads guilty to music streaming fraud aided by AI
- Billboard: AI music streaming fraudster sentenced to 1.5 years in prison
- Ars Technica: Fraudster jailed for using 10K bots and AI songs to outstream Taylor Swift
Deep dive
On October 12, Polymarket posted that a man was sentenced to 18 months in prison after generating hundreds of thousands of AI songs and using bots to stream them billions of times, outstreaming Taylor Swift and earning $8 million. The sentence was handed down on October 6.
According to the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, Judge John G. Koeltl sentenced Michael Smith to 18 months in prison and two years of supervised release, and ordered $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture. Prosecutors said that from 2017 to 2024 Smith used fake email accounts and fraudulently obtained debit cards to create thousands of bot accounts, at times as many as 10,000 at once, on platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music.
The office said Smith's AI generated songs were streamed billions of times. In April 2023, it said, Taylor Swift's entire catalogue received 9.3 million family plan streams on YouTube Music, while Smith's bots generated 80.9 million family plan streams of his music.
Billboard reported that Smith's lawyers asked for no prison time, arguing no victim suffered real harm, while federal guidelines called for 46 to 57 months and probation officials recommended 24. Billboard called it the first criminal case over streaming fraud.
What to expect next
Watch whether prosecutors bring more streaming fraud cases now that a sentence is on the books, and whether platforms such as Spotify and Deezer tighten detection of AI generated tracks and bot listening.
Also watch how labels and artist groups use the case to push for rules on labeling AI music and on how royalty pools are protected from automated streams.