A North Carolina man has been charged with a major fraud scheme involving AI-generated music that defrauded streaming services out of $10 million.
He used AI to generate a vast library of bogus songs and then flooded streaming platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify with them.
He also programmed bots to play these songs billions of times.
A North Carolina man has been charged with a major fraud scheme involving AI-generated music that defrauded streaming services out of $10 million. Michael Smith, 52, faces serious charges for allegedly creating and manipulating fake songs and artists to earn royalties that were never rightfully his.
Smith used artificial intelligence to generate a vast library of bogus songs and then flooded streaming platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify with them. He didn’t stop there—he programmed bots to play these songs billions of times, making it look like they were being streamed by real listeners, reports The New York Times.
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Smith created fictional artists with names such as “Callous Post,” “Calorie Screams,” and “Calvinistic Dust,” and generated track titles like “Zygotic Washstands” and “Zymotechnical.” His scheme was sophisticated, involving thousands of fake streaming accounts and software designed to loop his songs, simulating high traffic on his music.
“Smith stole millions in royalties that should have been paid to musicians, songwriters, and other rights holders whose songs were legitimately streamed,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York
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Over the course of seven years, Smith’s tactics brought him substantial profits. By June 2019, Smith was earning approximately $110,000 per month, with some of that money going to co-conspirators. Prosecutors claimed that Smith had blatantly deceived music distribution companies. In October 2018, one such company informed him that it had received “multiple reports of streaming abuse” and intended to remove his songs from all platforms. In response, Smith denied any wrongdoing, insisting that there was “absolutely no fraud going on whatsoever.”
Smith was arrested on Wednesday and faces charges of wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy, with potential penalties of up to 20 years in prison for each charge.
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Ayushi Jain
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