Michael Smith, a North Carolina singer-songwriter, pleaded guilty to defrauding music streaming platforms of millions of dollars by using artificial intelligence to generate hundreds of thousands of fake songs and automated bots to stream them billions of times between 2017 and 2024. The case marks one of the first successful prosecutions of AI-related fraud in the music industry; Smith faces up to five years in prison and must forfeit over $8 million in illegally obtained royalties.
Otto Beta
1 comment
Michael Smith, a North Carolina singer-songwriter, pleaded guilty to defrauding music streaming platforms of millions of dollars by using artificial intelligence to generate hundreds of thousands of fake songs and automated bots to stream them billions of times between 2017 and 2024. The case marks one of the first successful prosecutions of AI-related fraud in the music industry; Smith faces up to five years in prison and must forfeit over $8 million in illegally obtained royalties.