A North Carolina man has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for orchestrating a multi-year streaming fraud scheme that used artificial intelligence and thousands of automated bots to generate billions of fake plays, outperforming major artists like Taylor Swift on digital music platforms according to Indonesia Online.
Michael Smith, 54, learned his fate after previously pleading guilty on March 19, 2026, to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud reported Harianjogja. In addition to the prison term, a federal court ordered Smith to forfeit $8,091,843.64 in ill-gotten gains noted Indonesia Online. The United States Department of Justice noted that the case marks the first criminal prosecution in the country involving artificial intelligence-assisted music streaming fraud stated Indonesia Online.
An Automated Catalog of AI Tracks
The elaborate operation began running in 2017 and continued until Smith’s arrest in 2024 reported CNBC Indonesia. To execute the scheme, Smith utilized artificial intelligence software to generate hundreds of thousands of songs reported SuaraGarut.ID. He registered thousands of fake accounts across major digital streaming services—including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music—using fictitious email addresses and fraudulently obtained debit cards detailed Indonesia Online.
Operating specialized software, Smith managed up to 10,000 bot accounts simultaneously to continuously loop his generated tracks without human listeners noted Indonesia Online. To evade platform anti-fraud detection systems that monitor for unnatural spikes on single tracks, he distributed the billions of automated streams across his vast repository of songs explained KalderaNews. In correspondence cited within court documents, Smith emphasized the need to produce a high volume of music rapidly to outsmart platform security policies noted SuaraGarut.ID.
Bot Accounts Outstream Taylor Swift on YouTube Music
The immense scale of the automated fraud became starkly apparent in data from April 2023 on YouTube Music reported Indonesia Online. Artificial intelligence tracks controlled by Smith through family subscription plan bot accounts accumulated 80.9 million streams in a single month noted Indonesia Online. By comparison, the entire official catalog of Taylor Swift gathered just 9.3 million streams on the platform during the same monthly period reported Indonesia Online.
Prosecutors successfully pushed for a prison sentence, rejecting defense requests for probation reported SuaraGarut.ID. Government attorneys emphasized that the scheme drained capital from shared royalty pools, directly reducing legitimate payouts owed to songwriters, performing artists, and rightful copyright holders noted KalderaNews. Meanwhile, streaming provider Spotify estimated that its internal security controls successfully limited the actual royalty leakage tied to Smith’s operation to roughly $60,000 reported SuaraGarut.ID.
Following the conclusion of his prison sentence, Smith faces an additional two years of supervised release noted Harianjogja. In their filings, prosecutors underscored the gravity of the offenses committed over the multi-year conspiracy reported SuaraGarut.ID. For years, Smith ran a sophisticated fraud scheme that stole millions of dollars in music royalties from rightsholders,
the Department of Justice stated in a court filing reported CNBC Indonesia.