Musicians indicted for using bots to boost streaming revenue

A US musician has been accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) tools and thousands of bots to fraudulently stream his songs billions of times in order to claim millions of dollars in copyright royalties.

Michael Smith of North Carolina was indicted on three counts of wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy.

Prosecutors say this is the first time they have handled a criminal case of this nature.

“Through an audacious fraudulent scheme, Smith stole millions of dollars in royalties that should have been paid to musicians, songwriters and other rights holders of lawfully streamed songs,” said U.S. Attorney Damien Williams.

According to a sealed indictment detailing the charges, the 52-year-old used hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs to manipulate streaming.

These tracks were streamed billions of times across multiple platforms by thousands of automated bot accounts to avoid detection.

Authorities say Smith solicited more than $10 million in royalty payments over the course of the multi-year scheme.

Prosecutors said the investigation, which also involved the FBI, would finally result in Smith being “held accountable.”

“The FBI remains committed to apprehending those who misuse sophisticated technology to obtain illicit profits or to infringe on the genuine artistic talent of others,” said FBI Acting Deputy Director Christy M. Curtis.

According to the indictment, Smith operated up to 10,000 active bot accounts to stream AI-generated music.

The songs in question are allegedly provided to Smith through a partnership with the CEO of an unnamed AI music company that he turned to around 2018.

The conspirators allegedly provided him with thousands of tracks each month in exchange for track metadata, such as song title and artist name, and a monthly share of streaming revenue.

“Please keep in mind what we’re doing here musically. This is not ‘music,’ this is ‘instant music,'” the executive wrote in a March 2019 email to Smith and also revealed in the indictment.

Citing further emails obtained from Smith and co-conspirators in the scheme, the indictment also says the technology used to create the tracks improved over time, making it harder for the platforms to detect the scheme.

“Existing music has currently generated over 4 billion streams and $12 million in royalties since 2019,” Smith argued in a February email.

Smith faces decades in prison if convicted.

Earlier this year, a Danish man was reportedly found guilty of illegally profiting from music streaming royalties and given an 18-month sentence.

Music streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube generally prohibit users from artificially inflating play counts in order to earn royalties, and have taken steps to crack down on the practice or advise users on how to avoid it.

Spotify announced that under changes to its royalty policy that came into effect in April, it will begin charging labels and distributors a fee per song if they find that their music is being artificially streamed.

It also increased the number of streams a track needs in a 12-month period before royalties are paid, and extended the minimum track length for noise recordings, such as white noise tracks.

The prevalence of AI-generated music, and the increased use of free tools to create tracks, has raised concerns among artists and record labels about whether they will receive a fair share of the profits made from AI-generated tracks.

Tools that can produce text, images, video and audio in response to prompts are powered by systems that are “trained” on vast amounts of data, including online text and images, often collected indiscriminately from across the web.

Content belonging to artists and copyrighted content is also collected as part of the training data for these tools.

This has sparked outrage among artists across the creative industries who feel their work is being used to produce seemingly novel material without due recognition or compensation.

A track featuring vocal copies of Drake and The Weeknd went viral in 2023 and appeared on streaming services, after which platforms rushed to remove it.

Earlier this year, artists including Billie Eilish, Chapel Rowan, Elvis Costello and Aerosmith signed an open letter calling for an end to the “predatory” use of AI in the music industry.