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International Business Times UK
International Business Times UK
Thea Felicity

First Music Streaming Fraud Case: North Carolina Man Faces Jail and £6.5 Million Fine for Using AI and Bots

Spotify on MacBook Pro (Credit: sgcdesignco / Unsplash)

A North Carolina man has agreed to repay over £6.5 million ($8 million) after pleading guilty in what officials are calling the first-ever criminal case involving AI-assisted music streaming fraud.

Mike Smith, indicted in 2024, used artificial intelligence to generate thousands of songs and then created bots to stream them millions of times, siphoning royalties away from legitimate artists across major platforms.

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