Murphy Campbell Trapped by Fake AIs and Copyright Chaos

Murphy Campbell, a folk artist, finds herself at the center of a controversy involving artificial intelligence and the flaws in the copyright system. In January, she discovered that several songs, which she had never uploaded to Spotify, appeared on her profile. These tracks, although recorded by her, had been altered with AI-generated voices. Campbell quickly realized that someone had extracted performances of her songs posted on YouTube to create these AI covers and upload them to streaming platforms under her name.

To verify her suspicions, Campbell submitted one of the songs, "Four Marys," to two AI detectors. The results confirmed that it was likely AI-generated content. "I felt like we had a bit more checks in place before someone could just do that," she said, expressing her surprise at how easily these tracks had been published under her name.

Despite her efforts to have these songs removed, the process has been long and frustrating. Although the disputed tracks are no longer available on YouTube Music or Apple Music, at least one of them remains accessible on Spotify, but under another artist profile with the same name. "Obviously, I was thrilled about that," she added with irony.

Spotify is currently testing a new system that would allow artists to manually approve songs before they appear on their profile. Campbell remains skeptical, wondering if such a promise will be kept. "It just seems like that's not what they've done, but I would be curious to try it in the future," she stated.

However, this was just the beginning of the complications for Campbell. On the same day that a Rolling Stone article was published discussing her encounter with AI impersonators, a series of videos were uploaded to YouTube via the distributor Vydia by a user calling themselves Murphy Rider. These videos were not published publicly, and it is unclear if anyone other than the uploader has seen them. YouTube declined to comment on this story.

These videos were used to claim ownership of the material in several of Murphy Campbell's videos. Campbell received a notice from YouTube indicating that she is now sharing revenue with the copyright holders of the music detected in her video, "Darling Corey." The most confusing part is that the songs at the center of these claims are all in the public domain, including the classic "In the Pines," which dates back to at least the 1870s and has been covered by everyone from Lead Belly to Nirvana.

Vydia has since canceled these claims, and spokesperson Roy LaManna clarified that the user behind the videos has been banned from their platform. Of the more than 6,000,000 claims filed by Vydia through YouTube's Content ID system, 0.02% have been deemed invalid, which LaManna considers "incredible" by industry standards. He added that Vydia has no connection to Timeless IR or the AI-generated covers that have been uploaded to streaming platforms under Campbell's name. Although the timing is suspicious, LaManna asserts that the two incidents are separate.

The situation has led to negative reactions, including death threats against Vydia, which necessitated the evacuation of their offices. Campbell is not ready to let Vydia off the hook but notes that it is not the only party responsible. The worlds of generative AI, music distribution, and copyright are complex, with multiple points of failure and opportunities for abuse. "I think this goes much deeper than we think," says Campbell.