Published: 10/7/2026
Source: Music Business Worldwide
Michael Smith received an 18-month federal prison sentence for using automated accounts to turn hundreds of thousands of AI-generated tracks into more than $8 million in fraudulent streaming royalties.
The scheme ran from 2017 through 2024 and used as many as 10,000 bot accounts at once. Prosecutors said those accounts streamed Smith’s synthetic catalog billions of times across services including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music and YouTube Music.
Judge John G. Koeltl also ordered Smith to forfeit $8,091,843.64 and serve two years of supervised release. The sentence was below the 46-month minimum prosecutors requested and the 24 months recommended by the U.S. Probation Office.
The key legal distinction matters for every AI musician: Smith was punished for wire-fraud conspiracy and manipulated streams, not simply for creating or distributing music with AI. The case nevertheless gives platforms, labels and regulators a concrete U.S. enforcement example as they build tougher systems for detecting artificial listening activity.