The US Copyright Office (USCO) has issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) seeking public comments on music streaming fraud and its impact on royalty payments to artists and rightsholders.
The inquiry examines the use of bot farms, click farms and artificial intelligence (AI) to divert royalties. Artists, labels and other industry stakeholders are being asked to submit data and evidence.
The announcement came one day after a federal judge sentenced North Carolina musician Michael Smith to 18 months in prison in the first US criminal prosecution for AI-assisted music streaming fraud.
Prosecutors said Smith’s operation ran between 2017 and 2024. It used automated accounts to generate fraudulent streams of AI-created music and collect royalty payments.
The operation involved:
- Up to 10,000 automated bot accounts.
- Hundreds of thousands of AI-generated tracks streamed billions of times.
- More than $8 million in royalty payments obtained by defrauding streaming platforms.
The Copyright Office’s public comment schedule sets two deadlines:
- Initial written comments: November 23, 2026.
- Reply comments: December 21, 2026.
