It had to happen, and possibly has happened before. Now it has definitely happened with severe potential consequences. An guileful North Carolina musician named Damian Williams has been accused of fraudulently streaming AI-created songs and dishonestly collecting royalties. We learn this from the United States Attorney’s Office of the Southern District of New York.
Far from an experimental scheme, Williams rolled out the plan at impressive scale — hundreds of thousands of AI songs, and billions of streams played by automated bot listeners. The payoff? He scraped what the Attorney’s office calls “millions in royalties that should have been paid to musicians, songwriters, and other rights holders whose songs were legitimately streamed.” (We are not certain how that calculation measures financial loss by legitimate musicians. But the gambit clearly succeeded until stopped.)
He is charged with three specific crimes, each carrying a 29-year potential sentence:
“SMITH, 52, of Cornelius, North Carolina, is charged with wire fraud conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison; and money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.” –DOJ
“Michael Smith allegedly produced hundreds of thousands of songs with artificial intelligence and utilized automatic features to repeatedly stream the music to generate unlawful royalties to the tune of $10 million,” stated FBI Acting Assistant Director Christie M Curtis. “The defendant’s alleged scheme played upon the integrity of the music industry by a concerted attempt to circumvent the streaming platforms’ policies.”
And yes, we’re sad to report the DOJ failed to resist saying this: “It’s time for Smith to face the music.”
Interestingly, Smith worked with an AI company and a music promoter to prepare his ploy. Neither of those entitles is implicated in the DOJ statement. (They are also not named.)
Other details are fascinating (it’s as if the DOJ is equally intrigued and irate); they can be seen HERE.
