Michael Smith collected $8,091,843.64 in royalties from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music for plays that no person chose. Up to 10,000 bot accounts streamed hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs he claimed as his, billions of times. The money came out of the pool that pays real artists and songwriters.
He was caught early. A music distributor flagged his streams as abuse in March 2018 and warned that October it would pull his releases. Smith, a 54-year-old North Carolina musician, called the warning “absolutely wrong and crazy,” and the streaming services kept paying until federal prosecutors charged him in September 2024. On October 6, 2026, Judge John G. Koeltl sentenced him to 18 months.
It started with his own music. In 2017, his lawyers say, Smith used bots to stream his own catalog. According to the Justice Department, he used fake email accounts and “fraudulently obtained debit cards” to open “thousands of fraudulent accounts,” then ran software that kept the bots streaming nonstop.
Prosecutors’ filings fill in the details. Smith signed the accounts up for the cheapest family plans. He paid for them with corporate debit cards that a Manhattan financial firm issued to “employees” who did not exist. At the peak, as many as 10,000 accounts were active, running on cloud computing.
In October 2017 he worked out what the operation could earn: 661,440 streams a day and $1,207,128 a year. Over a year that is about 241 million plays. By his own numbers, each fake play was worth about half a cent. Getting to millions of dollars at half a cent a play takes billions of plays.
Billions of plays on a small catalog stand out. So in 2018 Smith began working with the CEO of an AI music company and a promoter, who supplied him with thousands of “instant music” tracks a month. Billboard reported that hundreds of Smith’s songs listed Boomy CEO Alex Mitchell as a co-writer. Mitchell said he was “shocked,” and he has not been charged. Smith’s emails show why he needed the volume:
“We need to get a TON of songs fast to make this work around the anti-fraud policies.”
That line comes from a 2018 email quoted in the indictment. In 2019 a co-conspirator wrote: “this is not ‘music’, it’s ‘instant music’ ;)”. In May 2019 Smith wrote that “I can’t run the bots without content.”
Spreading the plays thin hid them, and the total was still enormous. In April 2023, according to the DOJ, Smith’s tracks drew more YouTube Music family-plan streams than one of the biggest acts in the world:
| April 2023 | YouTube Music family-plan streams |
|---|---|
| Michael Smith’s AI tracks | 80.9 million |
| Taylor Swift’s entire catalog | 9.3 million |
The 2018 warnings
The system that was supposed to catch this did catch it. In March 2018 a distributor, one of the middlemen that place independent music on the streaming services, flagged one of Smith’s songs as consistent with streaming abuse. In October 2018 it told him that multiple stores had reported abuse and that it planned to remove his releases.
Smith wrote back that there was “absolutely no fraud going on whatsoever.”
That same month he described his next move in an email. He said he needed “a TON of content with small amounts of Streams” so as not to “raise any issues with the powers that be.” The warning did not stop him. It told him how to avoid the next one.
Other flags followed. The Mechanical Licensing Collective, which pays songwriters for streams in the US, spotted irregularities and withheld payments. When investigators confronted him, the DOJ says, he lied to them.
So detection worked, and only partly mattered. The MLC held back its share. The streaming services’ own payouts kept flowing for six more years.
The warning did not stop him. It told him how to avoid the next one.
Who pays when the bots get paid
The streaming services did not pay Smith from their own pockets. Royalties come out of pools shared by rights holders, so every play his bots logged took a share that would otherwise have gone to a real artist or songwriter. US Attorney Jamie McDonald put it this way:
“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.”
The RIAA called the money “ill-gotten gains that come from the pockets of real artists”.
Smith’s defense turned that arithmetic into an excuse. His sentencing letter called the losses “a drop in an ocean” and argued that “no individual artist or songwriter suffered meaningful financial harm.” That describes the scheme rather than excusing it. Smith spread the theft thin so that no single victim would notice, and his own emails say so.
The letter also said artificial streaming “has been used throughout the business, including by major labels and publishers,” and asked the court not to punish one man for the “ills of an industry”. Whoever else does it, Smith’s bots still drew on the same pool as everyone else’s plays. Judge Koeltl answered it directly: “The victims are the artists.”
Smith also claimed a lawyer had told him the conduct would bring only civil penalties. In 2018 the same man was writing about working “around the anti-fraud policies” and staying clear of “the powers that be,” while telling his distributor there was “absolutely no fraud going on whatsoever.”
The $8.09 million forfeiture is what the scheme collected. Smith’s lawyers said prosecutors knew he “did not actually pocket $8 million”. The 2024 indictment had alleged more than $10 million, and the plea settled on the lower number.
Koeltl called the sentencing guideline range “somewhat inflated”. He gave 18 months, below the 24 months probation recommended and less than half of the 46 months prosecutors asked for. The original charges carried a 60-year maximum. Smith will serve his sentence at a prison camp in North Carolina.
The DOJ calls him the first American criminally charged with AI-assisted streaming fraud. IFPI said the result “sends a clear message that streaming fraud is a crime and has serious consequences.” The message took six and a half years to arrive. A distributor’s flag in March 2018 did not stop the payouts. A criminal charge in September 2024 did. Smith’s method was not unique to him, either: Deezer has published its own data on AI music fraud on its service.
What changed on October 6 is that one man got a sentence. How the money moves has not changed. The shared pool still pays for every play the services count, and when a fake play gets counted, the artists splitting that pool with it pay the bill.
Further Reading
- Fraudster jailed for using 10K bots and AI songs to outstream Taylor Swift, Ars Technica on the sentence, the forfeiture and the defense’s “ills of an industry” letter.
- Michael Smith, man behind $8M AI song and bot streaming fraud, sentenced to 18 months, Sentencing details and the 46-month government request.
- Prosecutors want man who pocketed $8M using AI songs and bot streams imprisoned, The government’s sentencing memo: family plans, fake employees’ debit cards, 2018-2019 emails.
- For Streaming Fraud Mike Smith Sentenced to 18 Months in Prison Camp in NC, Courtroom account with Judge Koeltl’s remarks.
- Streaming Fraudster Michael Smith Sentenced to 18 Months, The family-plan comparison with Taylor Swift and industry reactions.
- Music-streaming fraudster Michael Smith gets 18-month jail sentence, US Attorney Jamie McDonald and IFPI statements.
- AI Music Fraudster Wants Probation After $8M Scheme, The defense sentencing letter’s “drop in an ocean” argument.
- North Carolina musician charged over ‘brazen’ AI music streaming fraud scheme, The 2024 indictment and Smith’s “anti-fraud policies” email.
- US musician allegedly generated $10M using bots to rack up fake streams of AI songs, Indictment-era figures and the Mechanical Licensing Collective’s withheld payments.
- Musician accused of using bots to generate over $10 million in streaming, The AI music supplier and the Boomy co-writer credits.
- Smith’s defense sentencing submission, US v. Smith (SDNY), Defense filing on the scheme’s 2017 start with his own catalog.
- US Attorney’s Office (SDNY) court filing in US v. Smith, The March and October 2018 distributor warnings.