Man charged with utilizing AI and bots to generate cash for streaming.
A US singer is charged of falsely streaming songs billions of times with artificial intelligence (AI) tools and thousands of bots, so claiming millions of dollars in royalties. Three counts each of fraud by wire, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to launder money have been brought against North Carolina resident Michael Smith.
It is the initial criminal proceeding of its kind that prosecutors claim to have handled. "Through his brazen fraud concoct Smith seized millions in payments that should have been given to musicians, songwriters, and various other owners of rights whose works were legitimately played," stated US attorney Damian Williams.
The 52-year-old manipulated streams by using hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs, based on an unsealed indictment outlining the charges. Thousands of automated bot accounts streamed the music billions of times over several platforms in order to escape being discovered. According to the authorities, Mr. Smith was paid approximately $10 million in royalties during the course of the several-year operation.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Smith would eventually "face the music" as a result of their probe, which also included the FBI. FBI acting the deputy director Christie M. Curtis stated, "The FBI remains committed to plucking out those who exploit technological advances to receive illicit earnings and infringe on the real artistic abilities of other people."
Play music instantly
The indictment claims that Mr. Smith used up to 10,000 active bot accounts at one time in order to transmit his footprints created by artificial intelligence. The recordings in question are said to have been sent to Mr. Smith through a collaboration with the CEO of an unidentified AI music company, to whom he turned in or around 2018. In exchange for track metadata, including song and artist names, and an annual cut of stream money, the accomplice is alleged to have sent him thousands of tracks every month.
The executive sent Mr. Smith an email in March 2019 that was revealed in the indictment, saying, "Keep with that in mind what we're doing artistically here... this is not'music,' it's 'instant music' ;)," The indictment further claims that as the technology for creating the tracks advanced, it became more difficult for platforms to uncover the scheme, citing further emails that were seized from Mr. Smith and other scheme members. Mr. Smith stated that his "existing music has generated over 4 billion streams and $12 million in revenues since 2019" in an email from February.
If Mr. Smith is found guilty of the accusations, he may spend decades in prison. An 18-month term had been handed down to a guy in Denmark early this year after he was found guilty of fraudulently making money off of music streaming revenues. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and other music streaming services prohibit users from inflating their number of streams in order to receive royalties. Instead, they have taken action against this practice and have provided guidance on how to stay away from it.
Spotify announced that it will tax labels and distributors per track if it found fake streams of their content, in accordance with revisions to its royalties policies that went into effect in April. Additionally, it lengthened the minimum track length for noise recordings, such as white noise files, and raised the amount of streams a song must receive in a calendar year in order for royalties to be paid.
Broader issues
The growing popularity of AI-generated music and the accessibility of free song-making tools have exacerbated concerns among record companies and musicians regarding their rightful share of revenue from AI-generated music. Systems that have been "trained" on enormous amounts of data, such as online text and photos that are frequently indiscriminately scraped from around the web, are the foundation of tools that can generate text, images, video, and audio in response to commands.
Some of the training data for these tools has been scoured for content that is either copyrighted or belongs to artists. Artists in the creative industries are outraged by this because they believe their labor is being used to produce ostensibly original products without giving them credit or compensation. After a 2023 song that mimicked Drake and The Weeknd's voices got popular and appeared on streaming services, platforms hurried to take it off. Billie Eilish, Aerosmith, Chappell Roan, and Elvis Costello were among the musicians who signed an open letter earlier this year demanding a close to the "predatory" use of artificial intelligence in the music business.
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