Highlights
- A North Carolina man has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for an $8 million music streaming fraud scheme
- Prosecutors said he used up to 10,000 bot accounts to generate fake streams of AI-created songs
- His bot accounts streamed his music 80.9 million times on YouTube Music family plans in April 2023
- Taylor Swift's entire catalog received 9.3 million streams through those family plans during the same month, according to prosecutors
- The scheme generated more than $8 million in royalties before investigators uncovered the fraud
A music streaming fraud scheme involving thousands of bot accounts and AI-generated songs has resulted in an 18-month prison sentence after prosecutors said the operation generated more than $8 million in fraudulent royalties.
Michael Smith, 54, pleaded guilty in March 2026 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. He was also ordered to forfeit $8,091,843.64 and serve two years of supervised release.
How the bot operation worked
According to prosecutors, Smith ran the scheme from 2017 through 2024 by creating thousands of fake accounts on services including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify and YouTube Music.
He used software to make the accounts repeatedly stream songs he controlled, many of which were generated using AI. At its peak, as many as 10,000 bot accounts were active at the same time.
Smith also allegedly used fake email addresses and fraudulently obtained debit cards to create and maintain the accounts. He spread the streams across thousands of different songs in an effort to avoid triggering music platforms' fraud detection systems.
The Taylor Swift comparison
One of the clearest examples of the scale of the scheme came in April 2023.
Prosecutors said Smith's bot accounts streamed his AI-generated music 80.9 million times through YouTube Music family plans that month. By comparison, Taylor Swift's entire catalog received 9.3 million streams through family plans during the same period.
That means the bot-generated streams attributed to Smith's music were nearly nine times higher than the streams for Swift's entire catalog through that particular type of account.
The comparison does not mean Smith's music had more overall streams than Swift. It refers specifically to the YouTube Music family-plan activity identified by prosecutors.
How AI helped scale the scheme
Prosecutors said Smith used AI to create hundreds of thousands of songs, giving him a huge catalog that could be distributed across the fake accounts.
The bots then streamed those tracks billions of times over the course of the scheme. By generating large volumes of music and spreading the streams across numerous tracks, the operation was able to collect royalties while attempting to stay below the platforms' fraud detection systems.
The case highlights how AI-generated content can be used not only to produce music at scale but also to make fraudulent streaming operations much larger.
What happened to the money
The scheme ultimately generated more than $8 million in royalties, according to prosecutors.
Smith was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to forfeit $8,091,843.64. He will also serve two years of supervised release after his prison sentence.
The case shows how fake engagement can turn streaming systems into a source of illicit income when automated accounts are used to manufacture plays at massive scale.
