Fraudster Sentenced to 18 Months for $8M AI Music Streaming Bot Scheme

Michael Smith, 54, was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for orchestrating a massive AI-driven music streaming fraud scheme that extracted millions from platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. He pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in March, admitting to deploying thousands of bots since 2017 to stream fake AI-generated songs billions of times. The automated operation generated over $8M in illicit royalties, which Smith has agreed to fully forfeit as part of his plea deal. Defense attorneys argued for zero prison time, claiming the financial impact on individual artists was "a drop in an ocean," but the judge opted for a year and a half of jail time followed by two years of supervised release. "By flooding music streaming platforms with automated bots in the place of consumers, and fake songs in the place of creativity, Smith robbed millions in royalty payments from genuine artists and their fans." — Jamie McDonald