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US Man Sentenced to 18 Months in $8 Million AI Music Streaming Fraud
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Moneycontrol•13-10-2026, 12:49
US Man Sentenced to 18 Months in $8 Million AI Music Streaming Fraud
- •Michael Smith, 54, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for orchestrating an $8 million music streaming fraud using AI-generated songs.
- •Operating between 2017 and 2024, Smith used up to 10,000 automated bot accounts to generate billions of fake streams across major platforms.
- •Prosecutors revealed that his automated accounts once generated 80.9 million streams of his AI music in a month, outperforming Taylor Swift's family plan catalogue.
- •Smith pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was ordered to forfeit over $8 million.
- •The scheme diverted shared royalty revenue away from legitimate musicians and copyright holders.
Key Questions Answered
Michael Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release, and ordered to forfeit $8,091,843.64 after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Smith operated up to 10,000 automated bot accounts simultaneously using fake email addresses and illegally obtained debit cards to repeatedly stream hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs he owned across major platforms between 2017 and 2024.
In April 2023, Smith's automated accounts generated about 80.9 million streams of his AI music on YouTube Music family plans, surpassing the roughly 9.3 million streams received by Taylor Swift's entire catalog on those same family plans.
