The N.Y. Times (Maia Coleman) reports: A North Carolina man used artificial intelligence to create hundreds of thousands of fake songs by fake bands, then put them on streaming services where they were enjoyed by an audience of fake listeners, prosecutors said. From the Indictment : From approximately 2017, up to and including 2024, MICHAEL SMITH, the defendant, orchestrated a scheme to steal millions of dollars of musical royalties by fraudulently inflating music streams on digital streaming platforms (the "Streaming Platforms"), such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music. SMITH purchased from a coconspirator hundreds of thousands of songs that were created through artificial intelligence ("AI") and then uploaded to the Streaming Platforms. SMITH then used "bots"—automated programs—to stream the AI-generated songs billions of times. At the […]
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