AI Music Scam - Michael Smith

True Crimecast

Stove Leg Media

True Crime, Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.8 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 July 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In a case that sounds more like science fiction than true crime, 52-year-old Michael Smith of North Carolina allegedly used artificial intelligence and streaming bots to steal over $10 million in music royalties. By creating fake songs with AI, inventing phony artists, and flooding platforms like Spotify and Apple Music with automated plays, Smith pulled off what prosecutors call the first criminal case of its kind.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Stoveleg Media, Igniting Conversation.
0:05.0	Welcome to TrueCard to go. What can I get for you?
0:16.0	Yeah, I'm gonna need an internet scam, and I'm not talking about nabster over here.
0:21.0	I need something much bigger and better.
0:22.5	Maybe with a robot involved.
0:25.0	Pull up to the second window and we'll see you next crime.
0:32.4	Welcome to True Crime to Go.
0:34.8	I'm John, joined as always by my buddy Jamie. How you doing, man? I'm worried.
0:39.6	I'm worried about you right now. Why is that? Because I know that when Napster happened back in the
0:45.9	90s and Metallica sued them and you couldn't get your free music anymore. You had a hard time.
0:51.3	I did and I was really mad at Metallica and still hold a grudge to this day.
0:55.0	And we're kind of dabbling in that same world of music manipulation. So I just want to give you
1:01.1	a Metallica trigger warning. Metallica is not involved in this. Right. I also see that AI is involved,
1:07.7	which is one of my newest fun things to do. Like, I'm solving so many problems
1:13.2	using AI and it is just a blast. So, okay, let's go. Get us started, man. Yeah. So this is a mashup of
1:21.6	music, AI and jaw-dropping fraud. These are all of my favorite things. Unlike anything we were ever seen.
1:28.2	We're talking about a guy named Michael Smith, a 52-year-old musician from Cornelius, North
1:32.9	Carolina, who allegedly scammed his way into more than $10 million in royalties by tricking
1:40.7	some of the world's largest music streaming platforms and believing he was an artist.
1:45.7	That is a lot of Mool-A.
1:47.6	And to be clear, we're not talking about Michael W. Smith, who is the Christian musician and music writer.
1:55.6	Yeah, not the same guy.
	...

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