Man pleads guilty to generating songs with AI then having bots stream them 'billions of times' to make over $8 million in royalties

Man pleads guilty to generating songs with AI then having bots stream them ‘billions of times’ to make over $8 million in royalties | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show PC Gamer Clips Software Codes Coupons Movies & TV Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these AI A plague of AI-generated Homer Simpson cover songs is reportedly swamping a popular music file sharing network with the big yellow fella’s dulcet tones Gaming Industry Music marketplace Bandcamp bypasses AI disclosures and obtuse policies to announce a wholesale ban on AI slop AI A human software engineer rejected an AI agent’s code change request, only for the AI agent to retaliate by publishing an ‘angry’ blog about him AI A radio host is suing Google for an AI-generated voice he claims sounds suspiciously like him: ‘It’s this eerie moment where you feel like you’re listening to yourself’ AI First Grammarly cloned me without permission. 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Well, in at least one recent case, there was a ‘musician’ with billions of streams that basically all came from bots—and if that wasn’t enough, the music itself was AI-generated.The case is discussed in detail in a press release on justice.gov; the skinny is that North Carolina man Michael Smith “generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence and then streamed those fake songs billions of times,” according to U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, Jay Clayton. “Although the songs and listeners were fake, the millions of dollars Smith stole was real.”Last Thursday, Clayton announced Smith’s guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The scale of Smith’s operation is hard to fathom: “hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs were streamed by his bot accounts billions of times, which allowed him to fraudulently obtain more than $8 million in royalties,” said the attorney’s office in a press release. Turns out, all those itty-bitty royalty payments add up if you just throw enough bots at the wall.Article continues below You may like A plague of AI-generated Homer Simpson cover songs is reportedly swamping a popular music file sharing network with the big yellow fella’s dulcet tones Music marketplace Bandcamp bypasses AI disclosures