Man jailed for $8 million AI music scam
A North Carolina man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after using automated accounts to generate billions of streams of AI-created songs and collect more than $8 million in royalties, reports a Qazinform News Agency correspondent.
Michael Smith, 54, of Cornelius, was also ordered to forfeit $8,091,843.64 and serve two years of supervised release, the U.S. Department of Justice said. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud on March 19, 2026.
The scheme operated from 2017 to 2024 across platforms including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music. Smith uploaded hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and used as many as 10,000 automated accounts simultaneously to inflate their listening figures.
He spread fraudulent streams across numerous tracks to avoid triggering detection systems.
In April 2023, his accounts generated 80.9 million YouTube Music family-plan streams, compared with 9.3 million for Taylor Swift’s entire catalogue through family plans.
“Smith robbed millions in royalty payments from genuine artists and their fans,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said.
Prosecutors said manipulated streams diverted payments from musicians and songwriters with real audiences. The conviction concerned fraudulent royalty collection rather than the creation of AI music.
The case comes as technology companies expand tools for identifying synthetic media. On October 7, Google announced that its SynthID Detector was becoming available to everyone globally in English, following an earlier version intended for media professionals.
Users can check whether images, videos or audio contain SynthID watermarks associated with AI tools from Google and partners including OpenAI, NVIDIA and Kakao. Apple is expected to join.
Google said it had embedded the imperceptible watermarks in more than 180 billion images and videos, alongside the equivalent of 240,000 years of audio.
The detector complements verification features in Search, the Gemini app and Chrome, which Google says collectively handle more than one million requests daily.
These tools provide information about how content was created. Smith’s prosecution highlights the need for streaming services to ensure that listening figures reflect real audiences and royalty payments reach legitimate rights holders.
Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that Meta and Sierra are working with major technology companies to develop a new standard for how personal AI agents interact with businesses.