A music producer orchestrated a scheme using AI-generated songs and bot accounts to fraudulently stream music on platforms like Spotify, generating over $10 million in royalties through automated streaming that reached up to 661,440 streams per day.
Michael Smith, a 52-year-old music producer from Cornelius, North Carolina, was arrested and charged with multiple felonies for allegedly defrauding streaming platforms of more than $10 million in royalties. Beginning in 2018, Smith worked with an AI music company and a music promoter to generate hundreds of thousands of AI-created songs. He created thousands of bot accounts on platforms including Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music, using these accounts to automatically stream the AI-generated music he had uploaded. The scheme was designed to circumvent fraud detection systems by generating massive quantities of songs rather than repeatedly streaming a smaller number of tracks. Smith's operation reached up to 661,440 streams per day. He purchased large quantities of email addresses to create fake accounts and used VPN services to disguise that all the streaming was controlled from his residence. When confronted by the Mechanical Licensing Collective in 2023 about suspiciously rapid music production, Smith's representative falsely claimed the works were human-authored rather than AI-generated. Smith also denied streaming fraud accusations from platforms in 2019. He has been charged in the Southern District of New York with money laundering, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
Using AI systems to gain a personal advantage over others such as through cheating, fraud, scams, blackmail or targeted manipulation of beliefs or behavior. Examples include AI-facilitated plagiarism for research or education, impersonating a trusted or fake individual for illegitimate financial benefit, or creating humiliating or sexual imagery.
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
No population impact data reported.