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Musician sent to prison for $10 million streaming fraud using AI bots
A North Carolina musician was sentenced to 18 months in prison for collecting more than $10 million in royalties from Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music in a massive streaming royalty fraud scheme. 54-year-old Michael Smith pleaded guilty in March after being indicted in September 2024 for fraudulently inflating his songs’ listening stats […]
Musician admits to $10M streaming royalty fraud using AI bots
North Carolina musician Michael Smith has pleaded guilty to collecting over $10 million in royalty payments through a massive streaming royalty fraud scheme on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music. 54-year-old Smith bought hundreds of thousands of songs generated using artificial intelligence (AI) from an accomplice, uploaded them to these streaming platforms, and […]