The music industry is grappling with a significant rise in fraudulent streams, largely driven by AI-generated music and bots, with estimates suggesting billions of dollars are being siphoned away from legitimate artists. A study by CISAC and PMP Strategy projects that nearly 25% of creators' revenues could be at risk by 2028, amounting to over $4 billion. Deezer reported receiving 75,000 fully AI-generated tracks daily in April 2026, making up 44% of all daily uploads, with 85% of their streams deemed fraudulent. Apple Music also demonetized $17 million in fraudulent streams in 2025 alone.
Several actions are being taken to combat this issue. Sony Music has requested the removal of over 135,000 "deepfake" songs impersonating its artists, with 60,000 identified since last March. Michael Smith, a North Carolina man, pleaded guilty to defrauding streaming platforms out of $8 million by flooding services with AI-generated songs and using bots to inflate stream counts. He faces up to five years in prison and forfeiture of the $8,091,843.64 obtained through his scheme. This case marks one of the first successful prosecutions of AI-related fraud in the music industry.
Streaming services are also implementing measures. Deezer uses algorithms to detect fraudulent activity, estimating that 8% to 9% of all streams globally are fraudulent, representing $2 billion to $3 billion. While Deezer is currently the only platform labeling fully AI tracks, Spotify removed 75 million spam tracks last year, many of which were AI-generated. The consensus is that AI has "supercharged" streaming manipulation, making it crucial for streaming services to adopt better tools for identifying and flagging AI-generated content to protect artists' royalties.
