Man jailed for £6m Spotify scam using AI music and bots

Summarised from 2 outlets · Updated 7 Oct, 20:48 · Archive

A man was jailed for 18 months after generating over £6 million in fraudulent Spotify royalties using AI-generated music and bot accounts.

Michael Smith pleaded guilty to a Spotify fraud scheme that generated over £6 million in fraudulent royalties. According to reports, the scheme involved creating AI-generated music and using thousands of bot accounts to stream the tracks, generating an estimated $8 million in royalties. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison for the offence.

The case is described as the first of its kind involving this particular method of music streaming fraud. Smith's use of artificial intelligence to create the music and automated bot accounts to artificially inflate streaming numbers represents a novel approach to defrauding the streaming platform and its royalty distribution system.

How it is being reported

• Fraudster jailed for using 10K bots and AI songs to outstream Taylor SwiftMan gets 18 months for AI scheme stealing $8M in music streaming royalties.Ars Technica · 7 Oct, 18:57
• Man jailed after $8,000,000 scam in first of its kind caseA man was jailed over AI-generated music and streaming fraud (Picture: Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images) A man has been jailed for 18 months after a Spotify scam saw him generate over $8,000,000 (£6,040,000) in royalties. In the first-of-its-kind case, Michael Smith pleaded guilty to using…Metro · 7 Oct, 10:31

In this story: Michael Smith · Spotify

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