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A North Carolina musician has pled guilty to stealing $8 million in royalties with fake streams on AI-generated music in the first-ever criminal streaming fraud case brought by U.S. prosecutors.
Michael Smith, 54, copped to one count of wire fraud conspiracy on Thursday (March 19) in New York federal court. He agreed to forfeit his $8 million in streaming fraud proceeds and faces up to five years in prison.
“Michael Smith generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence and then streamed those fake songs billions of times,” said Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton, in a statement Thursday. “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…
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