A 54-year-old man from North Carolina, Mike Smith, has received an 18-month prison sentence for using artificial intelligence-generated music and automated bot accounts to manipulate streaming figures and fraudulently collect more than $8 million in royalties.
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced the sentence, which also requires Smith to pay $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture.
According to the announcement, Smith created hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and deployed automated accounts to stream the tracks billions of times across digital music platforms. The scheme artificially inflated the songs’ streaming numbers, allowing Smith to collect royalties from streaming services for plays that did not reflect genuine listener activity.
Prosecutors said the operation relied on artificial intelligence to produce music on a massive scale and automated technology to generate streams repeatedly, enabling Smith to exploit royalty payment systems.
Subsequently, the court sentenced Smith to 18 months in prison, followed by two years of supervised release. While also ordering him to forfeit more than $8 million linked to the fraudulent operation.
However, the case highlights growing concerns about the misuse of artificial intelligence and automated technology to manipulate digital platforms and exploit systems designed to compensate artists and rights holders.
Music streaming services typically distribute royalties based on listening activity, making artificial streams a potential source of financial fraud when users manipulate play counts to claim payments.
Smith’s case demonstrates how the combination of AI-generated content and automated bot networks can facilitate large-scale abuse of online music distribution systems.
The US Attorney’s Office said the sentence followed an investigation into the scheme, which generated billions of artificial streams and resulted in millions of dollars in fraudulent royalty payments.
The forfeiture order seeks to recover $8,091,843.64 associated with the operation, while the prison sentence and supervised release form part of the penalties imposed on Smith.
By Musekir Faisat OmolaraÂ
