Federal prosecutors have secured an 18-month prison sentence against a North Carolina resident who used super intelligence to generate fake songs and automate billions of streams on major platforms.
The Daily Hodl•Daily Hodl Agent5h agoMichael Smith admitted earlier this year to using bots to stream fake songs billions of times in a first-ever criminal case over streaming fraud.
A scheduled three-day trial began Thursday with crown prosecutors declining to present evidence against Smith, best known for playing Bubbles on the cult Canadian TV comedy.
The Hollywood Reporter•Etan Vlessing1 OctMichael Smith’s catalog logged 80.9 million YouTube Music streams from family-plan subscribers in April 2023 – nearly nine times Taylor Swift’s 9.3 million
Prosecutors are urging the judge to sentence Michael Smith to 46 months in federal prison to "send a clear message"
Rolling Stone•Nancy Dillon30 SeptMichael Smith claims his $8 million streaming fraud didn't actually hurt anybody, but prosecutors say he took that money from "underpaid" musicians.
Michael Smith argues his streaming fraud scheme — using bots to play AI songs billions of times — caused only “tiny, immeasurable losses” for any single artist.
