He exposed himself in his naivety.. An American defrauds broadcast platforms and reaps 8 million dollars

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A US court sentenced Michael Smith, 54, to 18 months in prison after he was convicted of implementing a fraudulent scheme that used artificial intelligence and automated robots to manipulate music streaming platforms and extract millions of dollars in royalties.

The court also issued a ruling to subject Smith, who resides in North Carolina, to a two-year probation period after the end of his sentence, in addition to confiscating more than $8 million in broadcast revenues he earned through the scheme.

The case represented the first prosecution of its kind by the US Department of Justice related to fraud in music streaming services using artificial intelligence tools. Smith pleaded guilty last March to conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

US authorities said that the scheme began in 2017 when Smith created thousands of fake accounts on music streaming platforms using email addresses he purchased online, before employing artificial intelligence tools to mass-produce songs, then playing them repeatedly through networks of digital robots to fool the platforms into having real listeners.

Investigations showed that the fake accounts broadcast these musical works billions of times until 2024, while Smith sometimes used about 10,000 automated accounts at the same time to increase the number of listening times and collect greater revenues.

The accused created dozens of fictitious artists with unknown names, while the songs bore random and automatically generated titles. Despite the absence of any real audience for them, these acts achieved huge listening numbers on platforms such as “Spotify”, “Apple Music” and “Amazon Music” thanks to the activity of bots.

Prosecution documents revealed that since 2017, Smith estimated his ability to achieve more than 661,000 listening operations per day, generating about $3,300 per day in royalties, or approximately $1.2 million annually.

The indictment indicated that his monthly revenues amounted to about $110,000 by 2019, before he boasted in an email in 2024 of achieving more than 4 billion listens and collecting about $12 million in revenue since 2019.

The prosecution said that the scheme not only deceived streaming platforms, but also deprived real artists of a portion of royalty revenues distributed based on listening volume, making the case one of the most prominent examples of the use of artificial intelligence in commercial fraud on a large scale.

The case highlights the increasing challenges facing the digital music industry with the spread of generative artificial intelligence tools, and the pressure it places on streaming platforms to develop more effective systems to detect fake accounts and protect the rights of artists and creators.