North Carolina Man Sentenced to 18 Months for AI Music Streaming Royalty Fraud

At this point, it feels like the music industry has simply adapted streaming bot-farmers into the business, but at least someone is facing some penalties for running up fake numbers. Earlier this year, the 54-year-old North Carolina singer-songwriter Mike Smith pleaded guilty for defrauding streaming services after he posted hundreds of thousands of AI-generated tracks and used bots to rack up billions of plays. Along the way, he raked in $8 million in royalties. It's the first criminal streaming fraud case in history, and it has now resulted in a prison sentence for Smith. The post Botter Sentenced To Prison In First Criminal Streaming Fraud Case, Will Return $8M In Slop Royalties appeared first on Stereogum.

A North Carolina man used thousands of bots and hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs to fraudulently earn more than $8 million in streaming royalties.

A North Carolina musician was sentenced to 18 months in prison for collecting more than $10 million in royalties from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music in a massive streaming royalty fraud scheme. [...]

The North Carolina man earned more than $8 million in royalties from streaming platforms after using thousands of bot accounts to stream his AI-generated songs billions of times.

Michael Smith admitted earlier this year to using bots to stream fake songs billions of times in a first-ever criminal case over streaming fraud.

Mike Smith, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, is the first person to face federal charges tied to artificially inflating streams of his music