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What happened in the streaming-fraud case?
Federal prosecutors alleged that Smith’s scheme ran from about 2017 through 2024. According to the 2024 indictment, he obtained hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs, uploaded them to streaming services, and used automated programs to play them billions of times. Prosecutors said he created false accounts, misrepresented who controlled them, and spread activity across a large catalog so that no single song drew too much attention. These details come from the indictment, which sets out allegations rather than findings made at trial. Read the indictment.
The platforms named in the indictment included Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, and YouTube Music. Their appearance in the case account does not establish that each service publicly determined its own losses, or that their policies were identical. The 2024 charging announcement described the case as an alleged fraud aided by artificial intelligence.
How prosecutors said the operation worked
In its October 2026 sentencing account, the Justice Department said Smith used as many as 10,000 bot accounts at once. The accounts were created with fake email addresses and debit cards obtained fraudulently, and their activity was spread across thousands of songs. Those operational details are DOJ’s account at sentencing. The sentencing release also gives a sense of scale: in April 2023, it said Smith’s AI-generated music received 80.9 million alleged bot-account streams, compared with 9.3 million streams for Taylor Swift’s entire catalog on YouTube Music family plans.
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How fake streams can divert royalties
Streaming platforms provide usage and revenue data that rights organizations use to allocate royalties. The indictment distinguishes money associated with the musical composition—typically paid to songwriters and publishers—from money associated with the sound recording, which is associated with performers and recording rights holders. It says both types can be distributed proportionally according to streaming activity. If artificial plays are counted as legitimate listening, they can claim a share of royalty pools and reduce the share available to works streamed by real listeners. The indictment describes that alleged mechanism; the U.S. Copyright Office likewise describes illegitimate plays as diluting royalties for legitimately streamed works.
There is no universal fixed payment per stream. The indictment says the amount varies with several factors and is often below one cent per stream. That is context from a 2024 court filing, not a current rate applicable to every platform, country, rights holder, or play.
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From the 2024 allegation to the 2026 sentence
| Stage | What the public record says |
|---|---|
| September 4, 2024: charging announcement | The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York alleged more than $10 million in fraudulently obtained royalties. The indictment charged Smith with three counts; those charges were not convictions. DOJ announcement. |
| March 19, 2026: guilty plea | Smith pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. DOJ said the scheme generated more than $8 million in royalties and that Smith agreed to forfeit $8,091,843.64. DOJ plea announcement. |
| October 6, 2026: sentencing | DOJ reported an 18-month prison sentence, two years of supervised release, and an order to pay $8,091,843.64 in forfeiture. The release does not establish that the forfeiture has been collected. DOJ sentencing announcement. |
The figures refer to different stages and categories: more than $10 million was the initial allegation, more than $8 million was the amount DOJ described after the plea, and $8,091,843.64 was the agreed and later ordered forfeiture. They should not be treated as interchangeable totals.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why streaming fraud is a broader industry issue
Smith’s case involved allegedly manufactured plays, but the Copyright Office describes other forms of streaming fraud too, including bot farms, click farms, playlist stuffing, and account hijacking. It says prevention efforts by digital music providers, distributors, vendors, rights holders, performance-rights organizations, collective-management organizations, and law enforcement have had varying success.
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On October 7, 2026, the Copyright Office listed a notice of inquiry seeking comments on streaming fraud’s prevalence, industry effects, existing countermeasures, and possible solutions. The listed deadlines are November 23, 2026, for initial comments and December 21, 2026, for reply comments. These are comment dates in an open policy process, not findings or enacted rules. See the Copyright Office notice.
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