At this point, it feels like the music industry has simply adapted streaming bot-farmers into the business, but at least someone is facing some penalties for running up fake numbers. Earlier this year, the 54-year-old North Carolina singer-songwriter Mike Smith pleaded guilty for defrauding streaming services after he posted hundreds of thousands of AI-generated tracks and used bots to rack up billions of plays. Along the way, he raked in $8 million in royalties. It’s the first criminal streaming fraud case in history, and it has now resulted in a prison sentence for Smith.
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