Man Who Profited $8M From AI Music Scams Seeks No Jail Time, Claims No Artist Harmed

Man who pocketed $8m using AI songs and bot streams asks for no prison time, arguing ‘no artist suffered any perceptible harm’

September 25, 2026 By Mandy Dalugdug

Michael Smith , the North Carolina man who admitted to collecting more than $8 million in royalties by using bots to stream AI-generated songs billions of times, is asking a federal judge to spare him from prison.

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That’s according to Billboard , which reported this week that Smith ‘s lawyers want him sentenced to probation instead.

Smith ‘s lawyers filed their sentencing memorandum in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday ( September 22 ), in United States v. Michael Smith , No. 24 Cr. 504 (JGK).

A separate letter filed the same day, reviewed by MBW , shows the defense asked Judge John G. Koeltl for permission to file unredacted versions of two documents under seal: the sentencing memorandum itself, and Exhibit A , a set of character-reference letters submitted on Smith ‘s behalf.

According to that letter, the publicly filed versions redact private health information about people other than Smith , including diagnoses and treatment details, along with contact information and other material the defense says raises “serious privacy concerns” for non-parties.

That letter can be read in full here .

According to Billboard , the memorandum argues that Smith ‘s scheme caused only “tiny, immeasurable losses” spread across millions of songwriters and artists.

“The effect each individual stream of one artist’s song has on every other artist’s share of total streams is not akin to a drop in a proverbial bucket – it is a drop in an ocean,” Smith ‘s lawyers write, according to Billboard . “No individual artist or songwriter suffered any perceptible harm from Mr. Smith’s conduct.”

The filing also argues that the harm to any single artist was “insignificant,” and that “big labels” were doing the same thing, Billboard reports.

> “While he made serious mistakes here, those mistakes do not define him as a person, and his fundamentally good character should assure the court that he presents no risk to the public going forward.” Michael Smith ‘s lawyers

Smith ‘s lawyers are also asking the judge to take into account his lack of a criminal record, what they describe as a history of good deeds – the subject of the sealed letters of support – and the impact a prison term would have on his family.

“While he made serious mistakes here, those mistakes do not define him as a person, and his fundamentally good character should assure the court that he presents no risk to the public going forward,” the filing states, according to Billboard .

Smith pleaded guilty in March to a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.

Federal sentencing guidelines, the framework judges use as a starting point, call for between 46 and 57 months in his case, according to Billboard .

The US Probation Office ‘s presentence report, prepared for the judge ahead of sentencing, recommended a shorter term of 24 months , Billboard added.

Prosecutors have yet to file their own sentencing submission.

As part of his plea deal, Smith also agreed to forfeit more than $8 million .

Smith was due to be sentenced on July 29 . That date passed without a sentencing, and no new date has appeared on the public docket.

Whatever sentence Judge Koeltl imposes will be the first handed down in the United States for AI-assisted streaming fraud, in what has been described as the first US criminal prosecution of its kind.

When Smith pleaded guilty, US Attorney Jay Clayton said the money had been taken from legitimate rightsholders, as MBW reported .

“Although the songs and listeners were fake, the millions of dollars Smith stole was real,” Clayton said at the time. “Millions of dollars in royalties that Smith diverted from real, deserving artists and rights holders.”

IFPI CEO Victoria Oakley and RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier set out a similar argument in an op-ed for MBW in February .

“Because streaming services pay rightsholders from a finite pool of revenue, income is being diverted from legitimate creators who attracted users, subscriptions, and advertising to these platforms in the first place,” Oakley and Glazier wrote. “This is theft, plain and simple.”

Smith was first indicted in September 2024 on three charges: wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, and money laundering conspiracy.

Each of those charges carried a maximum of 20 years in prison, and prosecutors alleged at the time that Smith had taken more than $10 million in royalties. The forfeiture figure agreed in his plea deal was $8,091,843.64 .

Prosecutors alleged that Smith worked with the CEO of an unnamed AI music company and a music promoter to produce the songs.

According to the indictment, Smith estimated at one point that his bots could generate around 661,440 streams per day, worth $1,207,128 in annual royalties.

The Mechanical Licensing Collective flagged irregularities in Smith ‘s streaming data and held back the related mechanical royalties.

Streaming fraud has led to prison sentences elsewhere.

In Denmark , a man was convicted in March 2024 of data fraud and copyright infringement after using bots to inflate streams on 689 tracks, and sentenced to 18 months in prison.

The Western High Court of Denmark increased that sentence to 24 months on appeal in February 2025 . Music Business Worldwide

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_Originally reported by [Music Business Worldwide](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/man-who-pocketed-8m-using-ai-songs-and-bot-streams-asks-for-no-prison-time-arguing-no-artist-suffered-any-perceptible-harm/)._