Ahead of sentencing, his lawyers had asked the judge for no prison time, arguing the harm to any single artist was “insignificant”

Kinda true, I guess, since the streaming platform already shortchanges artists

and “no victim suffered any real harm.”

Well, the company suffered financial harm.

By flooding music streaming platforms with automated bots in the place of consumers, and fake songs in the place of creativity, Smith robbed millions in royalty payments from genuine artists and their fans.

Not that the streaming company is a saint in this case, as they're the ones that really fuck genuine artists.

But the rise of artificial intelligence has supercharged the problem, both by enabling the creation of phony songs and by powering bot networks to play those tracks on repeat

Which is exactly one of AI's main selling point. Pump out shit for money. It's a feature, not a bug.

The dude is not getting fined either, so, even assuming that legal costs are ~4 million, that's still 4 million in profit waiting for him after 18 months in prison

The Music Fights Fraud Alliance, an advocacy group established in 2023, praised the sentencing of a man who “undermined trust in the music industry,”

HAHAHAHAHA, oh wow, didn't know they also doubled as a comedy club!