First Streaming Fraud Defendant Gets 18 Months — SkimNews
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- Mike Smith was sentenced to 18 months in prison by Judge John G. Koeltl in Manhattan federal court on Oct. 6, followed by two years of supervised release; he had previously agreed to forfeit $8 million as part of his March guilty plea to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which carries up to five years.
- Prosecutors had sought 46 months, Smith's lawyers had hoped for probation, and the judge landed roughly in between; Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nicholas W. Chiuchiolo and Kevin B. Mead had argued a "lenient sentence will send precisely the wrong message" about deterrence.
- Between 2017 and 2024, Smith used bots to improperly stream his music millions of times and also purchased and uploaded AI-generated songs for additional bot-driven royalties, earning $8 million in unearned payouts from the shared royalty fund.
- Smith choked up before the court, telling Judge Koeltl he "betrayed the music community I care so much about" and had turned his love of music into a "perverse business model."
- Wu-Tang Clan's RZA submitted a character letter on Smith's behalf, describing their years-long relationship that included joint music releases, Smith's rap competition One Shot, and their co-executive producing of the 2024 horror film Nyctophobia.
- Smith's defense attorney Justine Harris contended that streaming fraud is rampant across the industry, that individual prison sentences won't fix the system, and that meaningful deterrence requires structural reforms to the streaming ecosystem itself.
Why it matters: As the first federal streaming fraud prosecution, Smith's 18-month sentence — far below the 46 months prosecutors sought — sets an early benchmark for how courts treat automated-streaming schemes that siphon from artists' royalty pools. The defense's argument that jailing one operator fails to fix a broken streaming system now hangs over every future case in this space.
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