Bot Streams and AI Tracks Drive a $10 Million Music Scam

Rolling Stone recounts how Mike Smith allegedly ran a multi-year streaming-fraud scheme, using thousands of bot accounts to inflate plays and deploying AI-generated songs to boost royalties, ultimately courts charging him with more than $10 million in illicit earnings; the saga intertwined with SMH Records, a BET reality show, and a broader scrutiny of how streaming royalties and chart rankings can be gamed, underscoring vulnerabilities in the digital music economy.