Fraudster jailed for using 10K bots and AI songs to outstream Taylor Swift

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After pleading guilty, a 54-year-old North Carolina man, Michael Smith, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for using artificial intelligence to generate songs for a scheme that stole millions from music streaming platforms. In a press release Tuesday, the US Department of Justice said that Smith is the first American criminally charged with AI-assisted streaming fraud.

在认罪后，来自北卡罗来纳州、现年 54 岁的迈克尔·史密斯（Michael Smith）被判处 18 个月监禁，原因是他利用人工智能生成歌曲，实施了一项从音乐流媒体平台窃取数百万美元的计划。美国司法部在周二发布的新闻稿中表示，史密斯是美国首位因人工智能辅助流媒体欺诈而被刑事起诉的人。

First charged in 2024, Smith successfully ran the scheme for seven years without detection. Starting in 2017, Smith began using fake email accounts and “fraudulently obtained debit cards” to create “thousands of fraudulent accounts” on services including Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, the DOJ said. He then employed software that pushed the bots to continuously stream songs that he claimed to own, which the DOJ said were AI-generated.

史密斯于 2024 年首次被起诉，他成功运行该计划长达七年而未被发现。据司法部称，从 2017 年开始，史密斯利用虚假电子邮件账户和“非法获取的借记卡”，在亚马逊音乐、苹果音乐、Spotify 和 YouTube 音乐等服务平台上创建了“数千个欺诈账户”。随后，他使用软件驱动机器人程序持续播放他声称拥有版权的歌曲，而司法部指出这些歌曲均由人工智能生成。

By his arrest in 2024, he had created “hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs,” then dispersed billions of automated streams among them so that the bots could avoid raising any red flags by all targeting the same song at once. All together, the fake songs generated substantially more streams than some of the most popular artists today, however. According to the DOJ, in a glaring example from April 2023, Smith’s fake songs were fraudulently streamed 80.9 million times during that month, while Taylor Swift’s entire catalog only got 9.3 million streams during the same time period.

到 2024 年被捕时，他已经创作了“数十万首人工智能生成的歌曲”，并将数十亿次的自动播放量分散到这些歌曲中，以避免因所有机器人同时针对同一首歌曲而引发警报。然而，这些虚假歌曲的总播放量远超当今一些最受欢迎的艺人。据司法部称，一个明显的例子是 2023 年 4 月，史密斯的虚假歌曲在该月被欺诈性播放了 8090 万次，而泰勒·斯威夫特（Taylor Swift）的全部作品在同一时期仅获得 930 万次播放。

Smith’s streaming fraud didn’t just hurt platforms but genuine artists who share royalty pools on streaming services, the DOJ claimed. By cutting into that pool, Smith reduced royalties across the board. Therefore, on top of serving 18 months in prison, he must forfeit the $8,091,843.64 that he claimed through his AI scheme, the court ruled.

司法部声称，史密斯的流媒体欺诈不仅损害了平台利益，还伤害了在流媒体服务上共享版税池的真正艺人。通过瓜分这一版税池，史密斯降低了所有人的版税收入。因此，法院裁定，除了 18 个月的监禁外，他还必须没收其通过人工智能计划非法获取的 8,091,843.64 美元。

For Smith, the outcome likely feels outsized, as a letter from his lawyers prior to sentencing urged the court that the DOJ should not be punishing one man for the “ills of an industry.” Since this is the DOJ’s first prosecution of this kind, Smith’s legal team suggested officials were making an example of Smith, while knowing that he did not actually pocket $8 million. Instead of jail time, Smith fought for a probation sentence, noting that he was “profoundly sorry.”

对于史密斯来说，这一结果似乎过重，因为他的律师在判决前致信法院，敦促司法部不应让一个人为“整个行业的弊病”承担惩罚。由于这是司法部首次进行此类起诉，史密斯的法律团队认为，官方是在拿史密斯“杀鸡儆猴”，尽管他们明知他实际上并没有将 800 万美元全部装入腰包。史密斯曾争取缓刑而非监禁，并表示他感到“深深的悔意”。

He further explained that he’d been offered a job that paid $5,000 per month to do “audio production, mixing, mastering, and recording for a record label.” By requiring jail time, the DOJ would only serve to delay Smith’s ability to pay back the forfeiture, his lawyers suggested. The DOJ disagreed, though, telling the court that Smith engaged in increasingly deceptive tactics to sustain his artificial streaming, lied to cops when confronted, and needed a stronger sentence for deterrence.

他进一步解释说，他曾获得一份月薪 5,000 美元的工作，负责为一家唱片公司进行“音频制作、混音、母带处理和录音”。他的律师认为，司法部要求监禁只会延误史密斯偿还没收金额的能力。然而，司法部对此表示反对，并告诉法院，史密斯为了维持其虚假流媒体播放，采取了日益欺骗性的手段，在面对警察质询时撒谎，因此需要更严厉的判决以起到威慑作用。

“For years, Smith orchestrated a sophisticated fraudulent scheme that stole millions of dollars in musical royalties from rights holders,” the DOJ said. “The Court should impose a sentence that adequately punishes the defendant for his fraud scheme and sends a message to others that streaming fraud will be met with significant punishment.”