Michael Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty to a scheme that used automated accounts to stream songs he owned and collect royalties. The U.S. Department of Justice says the scheme generated more than $8 million from 2017 to 2024. The court also ordered Smith to forfeit $8,091,843.64.
What happened to Michael Smith?
On October 6, 2026, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York announced that Smith, 54, of Cornelius, North Carolina, had been sentenced to 18 months in prison and two years of supervised release. He pleaded guilty on March 19, 2026, to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl. The court ordered him to forfeit $8,091,843.64, according to the DOJ sentencing announcement.
How did the alleged scheme work?
DOJ says Smith combined fake accounts, streaming software, and a large catalog of songs he owned. The scheme, according to the government’s sentencing account, ran from 2017 through 2024.
- He created accounts. DOJ says Smith made thousands of fraudulent accounts on Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music, using fake email accounts and fraudulently obtained debit cards.
- Software played his music repeatedly. Automated accounts continuously streamed songs Smith owned. DOJ says he sometimes used as many as 10,000 bot accounts at once.
- He collected royalties. The artificial streams generated royalty payments tied to the songs, according to DOJ.
DOJ says Smith created hundreds of thousands of songs, generally with AI, and that the catalog received billions of streams. The sentencing announcement does not identify an AI vendor or model. It describes the technology as “super intelligence”; the earlier 2024 charging announcement used “artificial intelligence.” Those are the DOJ’s terms, not a technical identification of the software.
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How much money was involved?
The figures reflect different stages and measures of the case, so they should not be treated as interchangeable.
| Figure | What it refers to |
|---|---|
| More than $8 million | Royalties DOJ attributed to the fraudulent streams in its 2026 guilty-plea and sentencing announcements. |
| $8,091,843.64 | The exact amount the court ordered Smith to forfeit at sentencing in 2026; DOJ’s guilty-plea announcement said he had agreed to pay it. |
| More than $10 million | The amount DOJ alleged in its 2024 indictment announcement. That was an allegation at the charging stage, not the later plea or sentencing figure. |
The sentencing announcement gives a striking illustration of the scale DOJ described: in April 2023, Smith’s bot accounts generated 80.9 million streams, compared with 9.3 million streams for Taylor Swift’s entire YouTube Music catalog from family-plan streams that month. Both figures are DOJ’s comparison for that specific month and platform context; they are not a general measure of either artist’s audience.
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How did the criminal case change from charge to sentence?
The case’s legal posture changed between the indictment and the final sentence. In 2024, DOJ announced three charges, each carrying a stated maximum of 20 years. Those were the original charges and potential penalties, not the sentence Smith ultimately received. In 2026, Smith pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud; DOJ said that count carried a statutory maximum of five years. The judge imposed 18 months in prison.
The 2024 announcement described the conduct as alleged. Then-U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said, “As alleged, Michael Smith fraudulently streamed songs created with artificial intelligence billions of times in order to steal royalties.” By the 2026 plea and sentencing announcements, the case had advanced beyond allegations: Smith had pleaded guilty and been sentenced.
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Why can fake streams affect legitimate artists?
DOJ says music royalties are paid proportionately from a pool of funds to songwriters, musicians, and, in some cases, other rights holders. When fraudulent streams generate payments, they can divert money from rights holders whose music was legitimately streamed by real listeners.
The DOJ announcements do not calculate a loss for any individual artist or rights holder. They also do not establish how common similar schemes are or estimate streaming fraud’s total impact across the music industry.
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