AI Fraud: Millions Stolen From Real Artists

⏱ 3 min read

Michael Smith, a hustler from North Carolina, copped a plea in Manhattan federal court today for a brazen scheme to steal millions from the music industry. Smith wasn’t a musician; he was a fraudster who used artificial intelligence to generate thousands of worthless songs, then flooded streaming platforms with billions of fake plays. The goal? To pocket royalty payments meant for actual artists.

The scheme worked by exploiting how Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music pay out royalties. Every stream equals a tiny payment. Smith’s operation, a digital tidal wave of AI garbage, tricked those platforms into sending millions to a network of bot accounts controlled by Smith. The songs were fake, the listeners nonexistent, but the money was very real.

Court papers show Smith built a sprawling network of “Bot Accounts” and relentlessly pumped streams, mimicking genuine user activity. It was a high-tech grift, designed to game the system. While the exact amount of stolen royalties remains undisclosed, investigators believe it’s substantial.

“Although the songs and listeners were fake, the millions of dollars Smith stole was real,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said bluntly. Smith now faces sentencing and a likely stretch in federal prison. The case is a stark warning: even in the age of AI, old-fashioned greed can land you in a world of trouble.