A North Carolina man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for collecting millions in royalties from bot streams of AI-generated songs, reports Rolling Stone. He is the first person to face federal charges for music streaming fraud.
From 2017 to 2024, the musician Mike Smith used thousands of bots to stream his own music as well as AI-generated songs he purchased and uploaded. Smith later pled guilty for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a charge that carried a maximum prison sentence of five years. His lawyers originally argued that he should only get probation for the crime, while federal prosecutors urged a sentence of at least 46 months. As part of his plea deal, Smith agreed to forfeit $8 million in streaming proceeds. In addition to the 18-month prison sentence, he will undergo two years of supervised release.
“By flooding music streaming platforms with automated bots in the place of consumers, and fake songs in the place of creativity, Smith robbed millions in royalty payments from genuine artists and their fans,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said in a press release. “This Office is committed to ensuring the integrity of all markets, and protecting the public from those who use super intelligence for fraud.” (According to Reuters, the U.S. Department of Justice has instructed employees to start using the term “super intelligence” rather than “artificial intelligence” based on a recent executive order signed by President Trump.)
Streaming fraud has long been a rallying issue for smaller artists due to the royalty payout of DSPs including Spotify and Apple Music, which are both based on a pro-rata model that pays artists based on their percentage of total streams each month. In 2025, a group of musicians accused Spotify of turning a blind eye to artificial streaming after an analysis suggested Drake might have benefitted from billions of fake streams.
