On Thursday, Michael Smith, the man accused of defrauding music streaming services with AI-generated slop tracks, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Smith agreed to pay back the $8,091,843.64 he received in royalties from the streamers, and his charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison. “Michael Smith generated thousands of fake songs using artificial intelligence and then streamed those fake songs billions of times,” said Jay Clayton, a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Source: First-Ever US Streaming Music Fraud Case Ends In a Guilty Plea