Michael Smith has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for orchestrating a large-scale streaming fraud. Between 2017 and 2024, he utilized a network of 10,000 automated bots to stream AI-generated music across platforms including Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Amazon Music.
The operation involved the creation of hundreds of thousands of AI-generated tracks. Prosecutors reported that these songs were streamed billions of times, allowing Smith to generate more than $8 million in fraudulent royalty payments.
The scale of the scheme was highlighted by a comparison with Taylor Swift’s performance. In April 2023, Smith’s bot accounts recorded 80.9 million streams on YouTube Music, significantly outpacing the 9.3 million streams attributed to Taylor Swift’s entire catalog on the same platform during that period.
Following his prison term, Smith will serve two years of supervised release. Additionally, the court has ordered him to pay $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture as a result of his illegal activities.
