Billions of streams, No Real Fans: 8 Million Dollars, AI music scam

Imagine you could make millions of dollars from music that people don’t listen to. Most musicians spend years making songs and working hard to be able to build an audience, what if you can make money from music with fake fans? Thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence, this is now becoming possible, and one man managed to monetize AI-made music in a multimillion-dollar scam.

In October 2026, a man named Michael Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison after using AI-generated music and automated listeners to collect over $8 million in royalties from music streaming platforms. Throughout this time, from 2017 to 2024, Smith generated billions of streams with thousands of artificially created songs and thousands of fake accounts he used to boost his listener count. He relied on automated fake accounts to play his music over and over to make it seem popular, rather than having real humans listen. What makes this illegal is the fact that he intentionally manipulated streaming platforms to gain royalties that he did not earn himself. He used fake accounts and automated streams to make it look like his music was popular, through this, he collected millions of dollars that were supposed to go to legitimate artists.

What was so interesting in this case was how much fake popularity he was able to get. Smith’s fake accounts streamed some 80.9 million times on YouTube Music via family plans in April 2023. Taylor Swift had 9.3 million streams of her music during the same month. This demonstrates how massive his fame had gotten, he was in the same category as the music greats, if not higher.

Now to explore the blurred lines of the connection between art and crime. In the eyes of music, it was considered a form of creative expression, but in this case it was used for financial fraud. While there is nothing wrong with music created by AI, Smith’s use of it was part of a plan to make money illegally.

Also, how will this impact real musicians? Many artists strive to make original songs, grow their fanbase, and monetize their music. This is more than a case of someone using technology to their advantage. It starts to become a matter of fairness in the music business. This is because you are competing with people who are genuinely creating their own music and putting in the time and effort.

The rise of AI has sparked worry over the future of music, particularly with cases such as this one. AI can be a valuable creative asset, but it can also fall under the umbrella of a means of exploitation. The case of Smith shows how technology and money may blur the line between art and crime. So is it rewarding creativity, or is it rewarding those who know how to manipulate the system so that music generates millions of dollars without anyone ever hearing it?