Major AI‑music fraud, legal spillover
A man pleaded guilty to generating hundreds of thousands of fake AI songs and using bot streams to extract roughly $8M in royalties, and music publishers are now suing Anthropic over alleged copyright misuse in model training — putting AI and music licensing at the center of litigation. Spotify is also rolling out a vetting system that will let artists approve releases before they appear on profiles as platforms and labels scramble to curb deepfake music. ( )
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York issued a March 19, 2026 press release naming U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton and listing the case as a conspiracy to commit wire fraud in SDNY with sentencing set for July 29, 2026 before U.S. District Judge John G. Koeltl. (justice.gov) Prosecutors first indicted and arrested the defendant in September 2024 on three felony counts—wire fraud, wire fraud conspiracy, and money‑laundering conspiracy—each carrying up to 20 years, and the defendant was released on $500,000 bail after the initial arrest. (musicbusinessworldwide.com) DOJ filings cited a peak-rate estimate for the bot operation of roughly 661,440 streams per day, which the Department translated into projected annual royalties in excess of $1.2 million at peak throughput. (musicbusinessworldwide.com) The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) is named in reporting as a key actor that helped identify anomalous streaming activity and flag the scheme to investigators. (musicbusinessworldwide.com) A coalition led by Universal Music Publishing Group, Concord Music Group and ABKCO filed a Jan. 28, 2026 complaint in the Northern District of California alleging Anthropic torrented more than 20,000 copyrighted works and seeks statutory damages that could total roughly $3.077 billion. (musicbusinessworldwide.com) BMG filed a separate March 18, 2026 complaint alleging Anthropic copied lyrics from recordings including works by the Rolling Stones, Bruno Mars and Ariana Grande, and that BMG represents hundreds of infringed compositions in its filing. (finance.yahoo.com) Publishers have moved this month to blunt Anthropic’s fair‑use arguments, asking the court in California to treat the alleged mass copying for model training as actionable infringement based on discovery they say shows specific reproductions and access. (economictimes.indiatimes.com) Spotify announced an opt‑in beta called Artist Profile Protection on March 15, 2026 that routes eligible releases into an Approvals tab for artist team Admins and Editors and permits up to 28 days after a release for teams to approve or decline listings. (artists.spotify.com)
