A North Carolina musician has been arrested in an alleged fraud scheme that used AI to stream his music billions of times.

Prosecutors say 52-year-old Michael Smith had collected over $10 million in royalty payments since 2018, by using AI to repeatedly stream his music over thousands of fake accounts.

He also used AI to create tens of thousands of songs, so his scheme would not attract attention.

Prosecutors say Smith’s scheme stole royalty money from other, legitimate artists.