North CarolinaMichael Smith, 54, got 18 months for AI streaming fraud.

He is the first American criminally charged with AI-assisted streaming fraud, the Justice Department said.

Bot accounts spread billions of streams across hundreds of thousands of AI songs, so no single track raised detection flags.

His lawyers said he never pocketed $8 million and urged probation, arguing prosecutors were making an example of him.

Smith must forfeit $8,091,843.64, the court ruled.

How each outlet framed it
Ars Technica
details unprecedented scale (80.9M fraudulent streams April 2023 vs 9.3M Taylor Swift same month), highlights bot evasion sophistication

Sources: Ars Technica