Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York are seeking at least 46 months in prison for Michael Smith, opposing his request for probation after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. According to Rolling Stone’s reporting on the government’s sentencing submission, prosecutors argued that imprisonment is needed to deter streaming fraud and challenged the defense’s claim that losses were spread so widely that no individual artist suffered perceptible harm. Smith separately agreed to forfeit $8,091,843.64 in proceeds. The requested prison term is a recommendation, not a sentence already imposed; U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl is scheduled to sentence him on October 6.

Smith, a North Carolina musician, pleaded guilty on March 19, 2026, after using automated accounts to generate billions of artificial plays and collect more than $8 million in royalties. According to the Justice Department, he used hundreds of thousands of AI-generated songs to spread the activity across a large catalog, reducing the conspicuous spikes that could expose manipulation of individual tracks. Those artificial plays diverted royalty payments from legitimate musicians, songwriters and other rights holders. The case concerns fraudulent listening and payments—not simply the use of AI to create music—and illustrates how mass generation combined with bots can exploit streaming royalty systems.