A North Carolina man was charged by federal authorities after it was alleged that he used bots and AI-generated music to unlawfully obtain streaming royalties.
Michael Smith, as named by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, is charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud as well as conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering.
This week, his indictment was made public, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a news release.
According to the authorities, Smith created “thousands” of “Bot Accounts” on streaming services and programmed them to “continuously stream songs that he owned” in order to earn royalties that he could keep.
The attorney’s office claimed that in order to “obtain the necessary number of songs for his scheme to succeed,” he “eventually turned to artificial intelligence”.
According to the attorney’s office, Smith allegedly “randomly generated” the song and artist names on the AI-produced tracks, which he received through the CEO of an AI music company and a music promoter. This gave the misleading appearance that the songs had been created by real musicians.
The legal team claimed that Smith received royalties totaling more than $10 million from his “Bot Accounts,” which streamed “hundreds of thousands” of his AI-generated tunes “billions of times.”
According to the attorney’s office, he is suspected of carrying out his plan on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music.
Additionally, Smith is accused of making “many misrepresentations” to the streaming services.
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“The defendant’s alleged scheme played upon the integrity of the music industry by a concerted attempt to circumvent the streaming platforms’ policies,” FBI Acting Director Christie Curtis stated.
There might be a maximum of 20 years in prison for each of the three accusations.
“The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty,” according to the press release from the attorney’s office.
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