A North Carolina man has been jailed for 18 months in an $8 million AI music streaming fraud case after using automated accounts to collect royalties from billions of fake plays, federal prosecutors announced.
Michael Smith, 54, of Cornelius, was sentenced Oct. 6 by U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl in Manhattan. He also received two years of supervised release and was ordered to forfeit $8,091,843.64.
Smith pleaded guilty in March to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Prosecutors said his scheme ran from 2017 through 2024, targeting royalty systems used by Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music.
The operation relied on thousands of accounts programmed to play recordings repeatedly without real listeners. Smith used fake email addresses, improperly obtained debit cards, and software to keep accounts running. At times, he controlled as many as 10,000 accounts simultaneously. Prosecutors said the activity was designed to pass as genuine listening.
Man jailed in AI music fraud used thousands of fake accounts
Prosecutors said Smith expanded his catalog with hundreds of thousands of AI-generated tracks, allowing him to spread the activity across many songs rather than draw attention to a few unusually popular releases.
A man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for using bots to stream his own AI-generated music
He made over $8 million in fraudulent royalties by using fake accounts to play his songs billions of times across music streaming platforms pic.twitter.com/9Znbx7ZMEW
— non aesthetic things (@PicturesFoIder) October 11, 2026
In one email cited by authorities, Smith said he needed “a TON of songs fast” to get around platforms’ anti-fraud restrictions. The recordings eventually accumulated billions of artificial streams, according to court documents.
In April 2023, Smith’s accounts generated 80.9 million YouTube Music streams through family plans, compared with 9.3 million streams for Taylor Swift’s entire catalog in that same subscription category, prosecutors said.
Federal agents arrested Smith in September 2024. The original indictment alleged more than $10 million in fraudulently obtained royalties and included wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy charges. His later guilty plea covered one wire fraud conspiracy count. The plea carried a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
Prosecutors sought longer prison term as streaming fraud drew scrutiny
Prosecutors requested at least 46 months in prison, while Smith’s lawyers sought probation. The judge imposed 18 months.
The Justice Department called the 2024 indictment its first criminal case involving artificially inflated music streams. Officials said fraudulent plays divert royalties from musicians with genuine listeners.
On Oct. 7, the U.S. Copyright Office opened an inquiry into streaming fraud, citing Smith’s case. It is seeking public comments on methods used to manipulate play counts and ways to stop them.
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