He Used Bots to Stream Songs, Made $8M

An AI-driven music scam has ended on a sour note for Michael Smith. Futurism reports the North Carolina man pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud last Thursday in federal court in connection with the scheme; he faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced July 29. Per a DOJ press release, Smith used AI to pump out "hundreds of thousands" of tracks, then deployed bots to stream them billions of times on platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music.

Rolling Stone reports Smith employed thousands of accounts to spread out the activity and avoid being flagged by the streaming services. Its own investigation into Smith cited an email that prosecutors alleged Smith sent himself that tallied up his numbers: 1,040 accounts that each racked up an average 636 streams per day, which sums to 661,440 daily streams. With the average stream paying half-a-cent, his potential earnings were about $3,307 a day, or more than $1.2 million a year.

"Although the songs and listeners were fake, the millions of dollars Smith stole was real," said US Attorney Jay Clayton. "Millions of dollars in royalties that Smith diverted from real, deserving artists and rights holders." Prosecutors say the 54-year-old made more than $8 million; he's agreed to forfeit those millions—$8,091,843.64, specifically—as part of his plea.