美国男子用 1 万机器人和 AI 歌曲刷量超越 Taylor Swift，被判 18 个月监禁

Manage your consent preferences

If you are a resident of Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Utah, Oregon, Texas, Montana, Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, and New Jersey, Tennessee, Minnesota, Maryland, Indiana, Kentucky, or Rhode Island you have the right to opt-out of Targeted Advertising, including our “sale” and/or “sharing” of your Personal Information (“Opt-Out”). We and our third-party business partners use Personal Information in accordance with our Privacy Policy to serve advertising believed to be of interest to you (“Targeted Advertising”). If you are a California resident, you also have the right to limit the use and disclosure of your Sensitive Personal information in particular circumstances. Please note that you may need to Opt-Out on each website, mobile app, browser, and device you use, and if you clear your browser cookies, you may need to repeat this process. However, if you have created an account to log in across several of our websites and/or mobile apps, we will make reasonable efforts to apply your Opt-Out request to each of those websites and apps. ◦ To Opt-Out of Targeted Advertising on this site: Move the “Allow Targeted Advertising" toggle below to the left and press “Confirm My Choices”◦ To Opt-Out of other “sales”, including for list rentals, data co-ops, and to limit the use and disclosure of your Sensitive Personal Information: Please email privacy_administration@condenast.com or call 1-877-241-4999.

Essential

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Audience Measurement

We use audience measurement cookies in order to carry out aggregated traffic measurement and generate performance statistics essential for the proper functioning of the site and the provision of its content (for example to measure performance, to detect navigation problems, to optimization technical performance or ergonomics, to estimate server power needed and to analyse content performance). The use of these cookies is strictly limited to measuring the site's audience. These cookies do not allow the tracking of navigation on other websites and the data collected is not combined or shared with third parties. You can refuse the use of this cookie by switching off the slider to the right.

Functional

This website uses functional cookies and services to remember your preferences and choices, such as language preferences, font sizes, region selections, and customized layouts. They enable this website to offer enhanced and personalized functionalities.

Social Media

These cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

Allow Sale/Targeted Advertising?

We may transfer or share your personal information to third parties for the purposes of targeted advertising. You can learn more about what information is used for this purpose in our privacy notice.

Confirm My Choices Reject All Accept All

Consent powered by Ethyca

Skip to content Ars Technica home

Sections

Forum Subscribe Search

Forum Subscribe

Story text

Size Width * Links

Subscribers only
Learn more

Pin to story

Theme

HyperLight
Day & Night
Dark
System

Tortured streaming fraudster department

Outstreaming Taylor Swift is easy with 10K bots and AI songs, fraudster admits

Man gets 18 months for AI scheme stealing $8M in music streaming royalties.

Ashley Belanger – Oct 7, 2026 5:57 PM|0

Credit: Taylor Hill / Contributor | FilmMagic

Text settings

Story text

Size Width * Links

Subscribers only
Learn more

Minimize to nav

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.

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.

Ars Video

How Scientists Respond to Science Deniers

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.

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.

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.” 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.

“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.”

Ashley BelangerSenior Policy Reporter

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

0 Comments

Comments

Forum view

Loading comments...