Michael Smith Receives 18-Month Sentence for AI Music Streaming Fraud

Michael Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison on October 6, 2026, for using thousands of bot accounts to stream hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs billions of times and fraudulently collect more than $8 million in royalties, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced in a press release. U.S.

District Judge John G. Koeltl imposed the sentence. Smith, 54, of Cornelius, North Carolina, was also sentenced to two years of supervised release and ordered to pay $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture. The sentence followed Smith’s guilty plea on March 19, 2026, before Judge Koeltl to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The office described the prosecution as the Justice Department’s first criminally charged super-intelligence-assisted music streaming fraud case. “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,” U.S.

Attorney Jamie McDonald said. According to the charging documents and statements made in public filings and court proceedings, Smith’s fraud ran…