The Music Man

Michael Smith allegedly played his AI-generated music billions of times to bots, ripping off streaming services and artists

“Ya got trouble, my friend, right here. I say, trouble right here in River City.” - The Music Man.

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Amazon Music, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music and other streaming platforms have polluted the Earth with terrible tunes.

They’ll pay anyone for any song, as long as someone or something clicks on it.

They deserve artists like Michael Smith, a 52-year-old Cornelius, N.C., man who allegedly bagged more than $10 million in royalties by creating hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs and more than 1,000 bot accounts that clicked on them billions of times, according to a federal indictment released Wednesday.

He allegedly generated songs with titles like “Zygophyceae” by fake artists with names like “Camaxtli Minerva” that only a bot could love.

He generated about 661,440 streams a day, snagging annual royalties of more than $1.2 million, according to the indictment.

“Smith stole millions in royalties that should have been paid to musicians, songwriters, and other rights holders whose songs were legitimately streamed,” said Damian Williams, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Smith has previously denied the allegations, according to the complaint, which is almost detailed enough to serve as a guide for anyone aspiring to repeat this type of fraud.

Nevertheless, Smith has made music history as the first criminal defendant accused of artificially inflating music streams.

I personally can’t recall a bigger music industry scandal since Milli Vanilli’s lip-synching debacle, Janet Jackson’s Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction, or maybe that time John Lennon bragged that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

Could it be that in this fallen digital world, “Zygotic Lanie,” could be more popular than Jesus? It’s a question that is best posed to bots.

“Great tunes,” said the bot. “We’ve played them billions of times.” (Illustration: AI Generated.)

Michael Smith.

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- Al Lewis