{"id":1533411,"date":"2026-03-22T21:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T21:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/VDmmQiSXc7nvFgqYqXBvva"},"modified":"2026-03-22T21:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T21:12:09","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty to generating songs with AI then having bots stream them &#8216;billions of times&#8217; to make over $8 million in royalties"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<p>Have you ever stumbled onto an extremely popular artist that you&#8217;ve never heard of before, just to wonder if you&#8217;re so out of touch that a global phenomenon could pass you by? Well, in at least one recent case, there was a &#8216;musician&#8217; with billions of streams that basically all came from bots\u2014and if that wasn&#8217;t enough, the music itself was AI-generated.<\/p>\n<p>The case is discussed in detail in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdny\/pr\/north-carolina-man-pleads-guilty-music-streaming-fraud-aided-artificial-intelligence-0\" target=\"_blank\">a press release<\/a> on <a href=\"http:\/\/justice.gov\" target=\"_blank\">justice.gov<\/a>; the skinny is that North Carolina man Michael Smith &#8220;generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence and then streamed those fake songs billions of times,&#8221; according to U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, Jay Clayton. &#8220;Although the songs and listeners were fake, the millions of dollars Smith stole was real.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Last Thursday, Clayton announced Smith&#8217;s guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The scale of Smith&#8217;s operation is hard to fathom: &#8220;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,&#8221; said the attorney&#8217;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.<\/p>\n<p>Smith won&#8217;t be sentenced until July, but the crime carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. He&#8217;s also agreed to forfeit more than $8 million of his ill-gotten gains. It&#8217;s no secret that AI is already responsible for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/hardware\/memory\/ram-and-storage-is-ridiculously-expensive-right-now-because-of-drumroll-ai-of-course-and-theres-little-reason-to-think-prices-will-drop-any-time-soon\/\">the RAMpocalypse<\/a> and other tangible ills, but its potential for bizarre crimes and careless distortions of ethics\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/first-grammarly-cloned-me-without-permission-then-another-ai-company-asked-if-it-could-do-the-same-for-usd2-000\/\">like cloning journalists without their consent<\/a>\u2014is something that we&#8217;ll probably be learning about for years to come.<\/p>\n<div class=\"product\"><a data-dimension112=\"fabcd950-14a7-4db2-92c5-f3df17ec683f\" data-action=\"Deal Block\" data-label=\"2026 games\" data-dimension48=\"2026 games\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><\/p>\n<figure class=\"van-image-figure \" >\n<div class='image-full-width-wrapper'>\n<div class='image-widthsetter' style=\"max-width:661px;\">\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:98.94%;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"6offQUY4CXebir2TC27dMd\" name=\"kingdom come 2 square\" caption=\"\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties.jpg\" mos=\"\" align=\"middle\" fullscreen=\"\" width=\"661\" height=\"654\" attribution=\"\" endorsement=\"\" credit=\"\" class=\"\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/games\/new-pc-games-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-dimension112=\"fabcd950-14a7-4db2-92c5-f3df17ec683f\" data-action=\"Deal Block\" data-label=\"2026 games\" data-dimension48=\"2026 games\" data-dimension25=\"\"><strong>2026 games<\/strong><\/a>: All the upcoming games<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-best-pc-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best PC games<\/strong><\/a>: Our all-time favorites<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-50-best-free-pc-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Free PC games<\/strong><\/a>: Freebie fest<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/best-fps-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best FPS games<\/strong><\/a>: Finest gunplay<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/best-rpgs-of-all-time\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best RPGs<\/strong><\/a>: Grand adventures<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/the-best-co-op-games\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Best co-op games<\/strong><\/a>: Better together<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pcgamer.com\/software\/ai\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-usd8-million-in-royalties\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Have you ever stumbled onto an extremely popular artist that you&#8217;ve never heard of before, just to wonder if you&#8217;re so out of touch that a global phenomenon could pass you by? Well, in at least one recent case, there was a &#8216;musician&#8217; with billions of streams that basically all came from bots\u2014and if that wasn&#8217;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 &#8220;generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence and then streamed those fake songs billions of times,&#8221; according to U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York, Jay Clayton. &#8220;Although the songs and listeners were fake, the millions of dollars Smith&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-more\"><a class=\"blog-excerpt button\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1533412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[336],"tags":[1997,1622],"class_list":["post-1533411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pc-gamer","tag-ai","tag-software"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Man pleads guilty to generating songs with AI then having bots stream them &#039;billions of times&#039; to make over $8 million in royalties | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Have you ever stumbled onto an extremely popular artist that you&#039;ve never heard of before, just to wonder if you&#039;re so out of touch that a global\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Man pleads guilty to generating songs with AI then having bots stream them &#039;billions of times&#039; to make over $8 million in royalties | Arcader News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Have you ever stumbled onto an extremely popular artist that you&#039;ve never heard of before, just to wonder if you&#039;re so out of touch that a global\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Arcade News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-03-22T21:12:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Arcade News\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Arcade News\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/arcader.org\\\/news\\\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/arcader.org\\\/news\\\/man-pleads-guilty-to-generating-songs-with-ai-then-having-bots-stream-them-billions-of-times-to-make-over-8-million-in-royalties\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Arcade News\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/arcader.org\\\/news\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8460f5e5076b52fb2369f2f7ce6f2839\"},\"headline\":\"Man pleads guilty to generating songs with AI then having bots stream them &#8216;billions of times&#8217; 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