Fraudster charged with $12 million in stolen royalties used 1,000 bots to stream hundreds of thousands of AI tracks billions of times

They say crime doesn't pay. But North Carolina musician Michael Smith allegedly managed to con music streaming services out of $12 million by setting up a 1,000-strong army of bots to stream AI-generated tunes he'd uploaded. At least, he did until the Feds caught up with him and charged Smith with multiple crimes.

Smith along with his co-conspirators is said to have operated his dastardly scheme from 2017 until 2024. Aware that simply uploading a track or two and using bots to stream the...