North carolina man who used ai for music streaming fraud sentenced to 18 months in prison – Breaking News & Latest Updates 2026
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Stevie Bonifield
North Carolina man who used AI for music streaming fraud sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Michael Smith, who pleaded guilty earlier this year, was also ordered to pay over $8 million. According to the DOJ, that’s the amount he earned in royalties from using bots to stream hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs from 2017 to 2024.

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