Re:US Man Given Prison Sentence for Bot-Farming Music Streams
by joe_the_user on Friday October 09, 2026 @01:34AM
(#50016383)
From the statement: At times SMITH was using as many as 10,000 Bot Accounts at once to fraudulently stream music, and he used fake email accounts and fraudulently-obtained debit cards to create the Bot Accounts.
So the bots he actually used were most likely illegal (though it's true other bots might not be).
However, using bots to collect royalties on the songs generated definitely fits within the definition of wire fraud as he was using electronic communications (i.e., the internet), to carry out a scheme to defraud streaming services of money.