CORNELIUS, N.C. — Local musicians are calling for new legislation after a Cornelius musician was arrested for an AI music scheme. He's charged with using artificial intelligence to create hundreds of thousands of songs that he streamed billions of times to collect over $10 million in royalty payments, authorities in New York said.
Officials arrested Michael Smith, 52, on Sept. 4 on fraud and conspiracy charges.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a news release that Smith’s fraud cheated musicians and songwriters between 2017 and this year of royalty money that is available for them to claim.
He said Smith, a musician with a small catalog of music that he owned, streamed songs created with artificial intelligence billions of times “to steal royalties.”
"Creating from AI was not the problem. I think the issue comes when we falsify accounts and then take that money," Glenn Tabor said.
Tabor owns Gat3, a music production studio in Charlotte. He explained how a scheme like this impacts artists.
"These companies take the massive income from all of the subscriptions and ad revenue, and then that's distributed amongst artists in plays and their percentages," Tabor said. "When you have AI thrown into that mix, you're really stealing valid money from the artists that need it."
The push for legislation to prevent this has fallen flat, both at the federal and state level.
"It really starts on a federal level. I think we need better laws and more and newer laws to help us cope with all the AI," Tabor said. "A lot of our music laws are very antiquated from decades ago, and it's going to take a little time for that to catch up."
Hamed Tabkhi from UNC Charlotte has seen this first hand, both as an associate professor who specializes in AI and as a part-time musician.
"It's a cat-and-mouse game, right? As you come with the new regulations, new policies. At the same time, AIs are getting better and bigger," said Hamed Tabkhi, an associate professor at UNC Charlotte who specializes in AI.
While both musicians would like to see more legislation protecting artists from schemes like this, they agree that AI can be helpful in their industry.
"I have more time to focus on creation and what really matters," Tabkhi said.
Both use AI already in their work.
"We can take tools and clean up bad audio, clean up noisy audio, harsh environments," Tabor said.
Smtih's charges carry a potential penalty of up to 60 years in prison.