A musician used artificial intelligence technologies to commit millions of dollars in fraud against services such as Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. He achieved this by deploying millions of bots to stream his synthetic compositions and receive massive illegal payouts.
Michael Smith became the first person in the United States to be imprisoned after pleading guilty to music fraud using AI.
Smith's complex scheme involved creating hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and subsequently deploying an extensive automated bot network for continuous playback of these tracks, which directly converted into significant funds.
Since music platforms pay royalties for every listen, the artist's potential income is directly dependent on the number of streams: the higher the number of plays, the greater the payout.
US Prosecutor Damian Williams stated that 'Michael Smith used technology to commit fraud.' He added that by flooding music streaming platforms with automated bots instead of real listeners and fake songs instead of authentic creations, Smith stole millions in royalties intended for real artists. He emphasized that the department continues to protect public markets from those who use technology to deceive others.
According to the US Department of Justice, Smith intentionally distributed his automated streams across thousands of different tracks to avoid triggering platform algorithms that flag suspicious spikes on individual compositions. During the peak period of his scheme, Smith simultaneously managed up to 10,000 bot accounts, creating them using fraudulent debit cards and disposable email addresses to maintain an inconspicuous flow of phantom listens.
For comparison, in April 2023, Taylor Swift received 9.3 million streams on YouTube Music from family plan streams. In the same month, Smith's bot counters reached 80.9 million streams. Ultimately, it was the incredible success of his bot army that led to Smith's arrest.