Fraudster jailed for using 10K bots and AI songs to outstream Taylor Swift
Ars Technica • • entertainment
Key Points:
- Michael Smith, a 54-year-old North Carolina man, was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to using AI-generated songs in a scheme that defrauded music streaming platforms of millions of dollars.
- Smith created thousands of fraudulent accounts on platforms like Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, using bots to stream hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs, generating billions of fake streams over seven years.
- His fraudulent streams vastly outperformed even top artists, with one example showing 80.9 million fake streams in a month compared to Taylor Swift’s 9.3 million, significantly reducing royalties for genuine artists.
- The court also ordered Smith to forfeit over $8 million obtained through the scheme, rejecting his lawyers’ arguments for probation and emphasizing the need for a strong sentence to deter similar crimes.
- The DOJ highlighted Smith’s deceptive tactics and dishonesty, stating that the sentence should serve as a warning that streaming fraud will be met with significant punishment.
