A North Carolina man is facing fraud charges for allegedly uploading hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs to streaming services and using bots to play them billions of times. Michael Smith is said to have over $10 million in royalties since 2017 through the scheme.
Smith, 52, was arrested on Wednesday. Indictment [PDF] A document unsealed the same day accuses him of using bots to steal royalty payments from platforms. , and . Smith is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York This is the first criminal case involving the use of bots to artificially inflate music streaming numbers.
Prosecutors accused Smith of creating thousands of bots to stream the songs. At first, he was said to have uploaded his music to streaming services, but realized his catalog wasn’t big enough to earn a large amount of royalties. After other attempts failed, he turned to music created by artificial intelligence in 2018.
According to the indictment, Smith began working with two unnamed co-conspirators — the CEO of an AI music company and a music promoter — to create hundreds of thousands of songs using artificial intelligence. In exchange for a cut of the revenue, the CEO allegedly provided thousands of tracks a week to Smith, who is said to randomly generate song titles and artist names for audio files.
Smith is accused of lying to streaming services by providing fake names and other fake account details when setting up the bots and agreeing to rules that prohibit streaming manipulation. According to the indictment, he tricked streaming services into pretending his bot accounts were legitimate, “hard-coded to stream Smith’s music billions of times.” Smith allegedly tried to cover his tracks by using fake email addresses and VPNs while telling his co-conspirators to be “undetectable.”
“Michael Smith fraudulently streamed AI-generated songs billions of times to steal royalties,” said US Attorney Damian Williams. “Through his brazen fraud scheme, Smith stole millions in royalties owed to musicians, songwriters and other rights holders whose songs were legitimately released.”
Smith’s work is completely different from that of a musician profiled earlier this year. Matt Farley has written, recorded, and uploaded tens of thousands of songs to streaming services about anything and everything people might be looking for, from celebrities and marriage proposals to tons of tunes about poo. Some songs are only a few seconds long, but the experience is completely above board. He is said to have earned around $200,000 from his music in 2023.
