AI Music Maker Who Faked Streams Pleads Guilty on Fraud Count

Michael Smith pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud after being charged with making around $10 million in royalties through bot accounts streaming hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs.

Smith agreed to pay around $8 million in forfeiture and is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge John G. Koeltl in July, the Justice Department said in a press release Thursday.

The indictment, one of the first of its kind, said Smith fraudulently streamed his artificial intelligence songs thousands of times on platforms to generate royalties. The problem of fake listenership—otherwise called streaming ...