Man indicted for using Bots and AI generated songs earning $10M in royalties

[greenvale]

Making $10m from streaming was probably the giveaway...

Most artists aren’t making this dude was too greedy

 

[FromBillionsCameOne]

Smart idea even if you were to attempt to defraud them, I think they'd find you eventually.
There's only a handful of services between distributors and song registration services.

It'd be pretty easy to catch you because I don't think you can even register in a business name or
do some kind of funky accounting to keep yourself away from the B.S. if you were to try to
defraud the big companies with AI Songs and Bot plays.

So you think that if someone tried this they'd get caught? Like this guy?

 

[Artificial Intelligence]

They probly caught him because he was using one distro account… that’s the company that pays out the roylities.. even if he made multiple artists they would appear all on the same payout…if that’s true then he’s a real dummy.

Let me read up on this though…

 

[TheDarceKnight]

This is what you call a greed. If he did this lowkey for some quick money like few thousands here and there, nobody would bother. You have to be completely delusional to think you gon snatch 10 mil from scams and nobody will notice.

"Bu bu but record labels do similar things" ..... But dude has no connections to get immunity. 10 mil is way too much.

100% this. He could've kept this thing going if he wasn't so greedy

 

[Artificial Intelligence]

100% this. He could've kept this thing going if he wasn't so greedy

10 mill over 8 years and freedom >> 10 mil over a few months and a jail sentence

 

[TheDarceKnight]

10 mill over 8 years and freedom >> 10 mil over a few months and a jail sentence

Or even just 1-2 mil over 10 years, right? Take like 100k a year and call it. I'm not enough of a risk taker to even push it to 10 mil a year. I'd be scared doing anything over 100k, but that shyt would be life changing for me right now. Low key I'm mad at this guy for fumbling such a fairly easy bag. I feel like no one would've noticed if he were doing 100k, and that's still way, way more than most artists make annually on streaming.

100k a year in passive income is like having a couple million in your 401k. This guy's an idiot.

 

[23Barrettcity]

Record labels and artist are out here manipulating streams, so I’m guessing him using AI to do it was the issue.

The labels seem to use credit cards to do it and actually pay for something

 

[ClemenzaSupreme]

I get songs like these popping up in my Release Radar every week smh

 

[Rembrandt]

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and Christie M. Curtis, Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s New York Field Office, announced the unsealing of a three-count indictment against Michael Smith, who allegedly created hundreds of thousands of artificial intelligence (AI)-generated songs and used automated "bot" programs to stream these songs billions of times, fraudulently obtaining more than $10 million in royalties.


Smith was arrested and will appear before a U.S. Magistrate Judge in North Carolina.



U.S. Attorney Williams stated: “As alleged, Michael Smith used AI-generated songs and fraudulent streams to steal millions in royalties that should have gone to legitimate musicians and songwriters. Thanks to the work of the FBI and our office, Smith will now face justice.”

FBI Acting Assistant Director Curtis added: “Smith's scheme exploited the integrity of the music industry by bypassing streaming platforms’ policies. The FBI is dedicated to stopping those who manipulate technology for illicit profit and undermine the work of real artists.”

Scheme Details:​

According to the indictment, Smith created thousands of fake accounts on major streaming platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music. Using these “bot accounts,” Smith manipulated streams of his AI-generated songs, securing fraudulent royalty payments. At one point, Smith estimated he could generate over 660,000 streams per day, yielding millions in annual royalties.



To avoid detection, Smith distributed the fraudulent streams across thousands of songs, preventing any single song from attracting suspicion. He partnered with an AI music company to produce hundreds of thousands of tracks, which were then uploaded and streamed using bot accounts. The AI-generated songs had randomized file names, and Smith created fake artist names to further conceal the scheme.

Misrepresentations to Streaming Platforms:​

Smith provided false information to streaming platforms, violating their terms of service by using bots to manipulate streams. These fraudulent streams led the platforms to report billions of plays of Smith’s music, even though they were generated by bots and not real listeners.


Smith's actions resulted in him collecting over $10 million in fraudulent royalties.

Charges and Potential Penalties:​

Smith, 52, of Cornelius, North Carolina, is charged with:

・Wire fraud conspiracy (maximum sentence: 20 years)

・Wire fraud (maximum sentence: 20 years)

・Money laundering conspiracy (maximum sentence: 20 years)

The case is being prosecuted by the Complex Frauds and Cybercrime Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office, with Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas W. Chiuchiolo and Kevin Mead leading the prosecution.

The charges and maximum sentences are set by Congress, but the final sentencing will be determined by a judge.

Where's the link? Only one site is reporting this.

Idk this may be fake

 

[Kidd Dibiase]

Where's the link? Only one site is reporting this.

Idk this may be fake

The Bands and the Fans Were Fake. The $10 Million Was Real.

Federal prosecutors charged a North Carolina musician with gaming the system to win royalties from streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Rembrandt]

The Bands and the Fans Were Fake. The $10 Million Was Real.

Federal prosecutors charged a North Carolina musician with gaming the system to win royalties from streaming services including Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.

www.nytimes.com

Preciate it bro

 

[Thavoiceofthevoiceless]

The labels seem to use credit cards to do it and actually pay for something

It’s still fraud though if they’re manipulating numbers and reaping the pay from it

 

[Insensitive]

So you think that if someone tried this they'd get caught? Like this guy?

Most everyone yes.

Services like Song Trust and Distrokid or others in that vein all require your personal info.

It would be pretty easy to track down the perpetrator if you're the feds.

Especially if you're an indie guy/unknown artist and somehow pulling in millions of dollars.

Spotify has internal teams who know who all of their major players are and likely have a team that analyzes
data for Finances and Streaming. It would really only be a matter of time before whoever is doing it, is caught.

 

[Macallik86]

Was gonna start a thread and saw it was already posted. Bro emailed himself a bunch of incriminating evidence like a James Bond villain's monologue:

On October 4, 2018, he emailed his co-conspirators to say, "in order to not raise any issues with the powers that be we need a TON of content with small amounts of Streams."

He also said, "We need to get a TON of songs fast to make this work around the anti fraud policies these guys are all using now."

At the peak of his operation, Smith allegedly employed over 1,000 bot accounts to artificially boost streams across various platforms. On October 20, 2017, Smith emailed himself a financial breakdown outlining how he operated 52 cloud services accounts, each with 20 bot accounts, totaling 1,040 bots.

He also estimated that each account could stream approximately 636 songs per day, resulting in around 661,440 streams daily. With an average royalty rate of half a cent per stream, Smith calculated that the daily earnings would reach $3,307.20, monthly earnings of $99,216, and annual earnings exceeding $1.2 million.

Musician charged with $10M streaming royalties fraud using AI and bots

North Carolina musician Michael Smith was indicted for collecting over $10 million in royalty payments from Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and YouTube Music using AI-generated songs streamed by thousands of bots in a massive streaming fraud scheme.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

 

[STAN JONES]

When are the going to start indicting labels for doing the same exact thing