A federal judge in Manhattan has sentenced Michael Smith, a 54-year-old from North Carolina, to 18 months in prison followed by two years of supervised release. Judge John G. Koeltl handed down the term on 6 October 2026. Both Billboard and Rolling Stone describe the case as the first criminal conviction over streaming fraud.
“If the public is watching this case, as the defendant claims, a lenient sentence will send precisely the wrong message: streaming fraud will not result in meaningful punishment.”
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas W. Chiuchiolo and Kevin B. Mead, in their sentencing submission · au.rollingstone.com ↗
Smith had pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries up to five years, and agreed to forfeit more than $8 million. The scheme ran from 2017 to 2024. Thousands of bots played songs on Spotify, Apple Music and other services, first on his own recordings and later on AI-made tracks. The outlets differ on sourcing: Billboard says he generated those songs with AI, while Rolling Stone says he bought AI-generated songs and uploaded them.
Smith's sentencing in Manhattan, as pictured with Rolling Stone's report
Bennett Raglin · Image: Rolling Stone (AU)
Prosecutors wanted at least 46 months, the bottom of the 46-to-57-month guideline range, and argued that a soft sentence would tell the industry that streaming fraud goes unpunished and that the money came out of underpaid songwriters. Probation had recommended 24 months, and the defence asked for probation alone. Smith's lawyers said each fake stream was a drop in an ocean, that the losses were tiny and that no identifiable victim was hurt. Smith himself said he was profoundly sorry, and that he believed his early efforts were lawful before he rationalised conduct he knew was wrong and gave false statements to distributors.
Letters asking for leniency came from family, friends and peers, among them RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, who had made music with Smith and shared executive producer credits with him on the 2024 horror film Nyctophobia. After the sentence, the RIAA and the Music Fights Fraud Alliance welcomed it, though the alliance said one case is not enough. Billboard also pointed to Drake's claim of bot use by UMG in the "Not Like Us" dispute as an example of the inflation worry. Neither outlet says when Smith must report to prison.
Sources · 2