In April 2023, Smith’s AI-created songs were streamed 80.9 million times on YouTube Music, nearly 9x more than Taylor Swift.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works .
“By flooding music streaming platforms with automated bots in the place of consumers, and fake songs in the place of creativity, Smith robbed millions in royalty payments from genuine artists and their fans,” said U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald. “This Office is committed to ensuring the integrity of all markets, and protecting the public from those who use super intelligence for fraud.”
Smith’s operation scaled massively between 2017 and 2024. He created thousands of fake streaming accounts on services like Spotify , YouTube Music, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. At the same time, he used AI to generate music to host on these services. The idea was to get his army of bots to continuously stream his own AI songs, and thus profit from royalty payments.
As mentioned in the intro, the scale of Smith’s fraudulent operation would become huge. As many as 10,000 bots would continuously consume streams of his AI-generated music. He created “hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs” to make sure it wasn’t just a few tracks on repeat, and make the music appreciation seem legitimate. During the fraud’s lifetime, Smith’s AI-generated music tracks were streamed billions of times, says the court report. Most importantly, in terms of results, prosecutors say Smith managed to net more than $8 million in fraudulent royalty payments.
The Taylor Swift streaming success comparison sheds some light on the audaciousness of Smith’s scheme. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York PR, “in April 2023, the entire catalogue of Taylor Swift received 9.3 million streams on YouTube Music from family plan streams, while in the same month, Smith’s Bot Accounts used family plans to fraudulently stream his AI-generated music 80.9 million times.”
Crypto bro faces 280 years in prison for defrauding investors with promises of an 'AI supercomputer' for mining
Counterfeit vinyl record maker sentenced to three years in the slammer after making $3.5 million
California tech CEO arrested, faces up to 20 years in prison for smuggling $300 million in Nvidia AI servers to China
Likely emboldened by the rapid flow of royalty cash willingly forwarded by the streaming giants, Smith certainly wasn’t flying under the radar when caught. Now Smith faces 18 months behind bars, then two years of supervised release, and an order to pay $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture.
Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.
Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox.
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/service-providers/streaming/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/service-providers/streaming/american-jailed-for-commanding-10-000-bots-to-stream-his-own-ai-generated-songs-and-earn-millions-in-fraudulent-royalty-payments-beating-taylor-swift-is-the-first-person-to-end-up-in-prison-for-ai-assisted-music-streaming-crime#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com/membership
- Grab a SteelSeries Apex Pro keyboard at up to 50% off — save up to $120 on one of the best gaming keyboards you can buy today
- AMD's EPYC Verano AI host CPU will reportedly use a special SB1 socket
- From Scan to Treatment Plan, AI Helps Close Breast Cancer’s Deadliest Gaps
- Our favorite budget gaming chair just hit an all-time low of $189
- Pre-orders are live on Nvidia RTX Spark devices, secure the Surface Laptop Ultra or other RTX Spark laptops here — starting at $2,599
Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.