BBC Trending: The dark side of music streaming

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 February 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In September last year, musician Michael Smith of North Carolina was charged with stealing millions from music streaming services. The US Department of Justice has accused him of using artificial intelligence tools and thousands of bots to fraudulently stream songs billions of times - taking millions of dollars of royalties which otherwise would have been paid to real artists. The case has been labelled as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘the first of its kind’. But could fraud on music streaming services actually be much more prevalent than any of the platforms let on? BBC Trending speaks to music industry insiders, and those fighting back against streaming fraud.

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's early autumn in the affluent neighborhood of Cornelius, North Carolina.
0:04.3	The luxury suburb lies along the shores of the pristine Lake Norman,
0:07.7	where people can often be found sailing and wakeboarding on the water.
0:11.7	On the 4th of September last year,
0:13.8	an FBI raid in the early hours of the morning stunned the pitch-rest community.
0:18.8	Local resident Mike Smith was led out of his house in handcuffs.
0:22.7	The FBI agents raided a Cornelius man's home. He's a musician, now facing serious charges,
0:28.6	accused of using AI to create and stream music and illegally collect more than $10 million in
0:35.6	royalties. I heard that they just barreled through his house and like trashed it.
0:40.4	Mike Smith seemed to have it all.
0:42.2	His post was a hundred twenty-four thousand followers on Instagram highlighted his family life
0:46.5	and successful music career with his profile bio proclaiming,
0:50.6	number one billboard charting recording artist.
0:53.6	You're actually listening to one of his tracks,
0:55.6	hardworking man as I speak,
0:57.3	but now he could be facing up to 60 years behind bars.
1:00.7	I was so surprised by the scale.
1:02.8	I was shocked.
1:04.1	Prosecutors have labelled the case against Mike Smith
1:06.0	the first of its kind,
1:07.5	but what might have driven him to set up this alleged scheme?
1:10.8	And could streaming fraud be much more common than we think?
	...

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