🎵 This Musician Made $10 Million Streaming His Own Songs — With Fake AI Listeners. He's Going to Prison.

Michael Smith, a North Carolina musician, pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy after using AI-generated music and AI bots to fake billions of streams on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music — pocketing over $10 million in royalty payments that should have gone to real artists. He created thousands of fake streaming accounts, generated AI songs to fill them, and had bots stream them arou...