US man pleads guilty to defrauding music streamers out of millions using AI | US crime
US man pleads guilty to defrauding music streamers out of millions using AI | US crime
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/mar/21/man-pleads-guilty-music-streaming-fraud-ai
Publish Date: 2026-03-21 15:13:00
Source Domain: www.theguardian.com
A North Carolina man has pleaded guilty to defrauding music streaming platforms and his fellow musicians out of millions in royalties by flooding the services with thousands of AI-generated songs – and using automated “bots” to artificially boost the number of listens into the billions.
As part of a deal with federal prosecutors in New York’s southern district, 52-year-old Michael Smith pleaded guilty on Friday to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
The case against the Cornelius, North Carolina, resident is one of the first successful prosecutions of AI-related fraud in the music business, which is being hammered by fake music that threatens to swamp streaming services and deprive earnings from legitimately human musicians and copyright holders.
“Michael Smith generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence and then streamed those fake songs billions of times,” US attorney Jay Clayton said in a statement.
“Although the songs and listeners were fake, the millions of dollars Smith stole was real. Millions of dollars in royalties that Smith diverted from real, deserving artists and rights holders. Smith’s brazen scheme is over, as he stands convicted of a federal crime for his AI-assisted fraud.”
Smith was charged in September 2024 with fraudulently obtaining more than $10m in royalty payments by amassing as many as 661,440 streams daily between 2017 and 2024, yielding annual royalties of $1,027,128.
Then US attorney Damian Williams said the defendant had stolen “millions in royalties that should have been paid to musicians, songwriters, and other rights holders whose songs were legitimately streamed” and it was “time for Smith to face the music”.
As one X commentator by the handle of Tuki pointed out after the plea deal was announced, Smith had used “AI make the music AND the audience” and had made $1.2m a year “for music no human ever actually listened to”. Musicians and the music industry, the X user added, now has “to…
