Murphy Campbell performs ballads from the public domain, yet YouTube accepted the copyright infringement claim regardless.
Murphy Campbell performs ballads from the public domain, yet YouTube accepted the copyright infringement claim regardless.
In January, folk musician Murphy Campbell discovered multiple tracks on her Spotify account that were not hers. These songs, which she had recorded, had never been uploaded by her to Spotify, and the vocals seemed peculiar.
She quickly concluded that someone had taken her performances from YouTube, crafted AI renditions, and posted them on streaming services under her name. I analyzed one of the tracks, “Four Marys,” using two separate AI detection tools, both indicating it was likely AI-generated.
Campbell was astonished, stating, “I was under the impression that we should have more safeguards before someone could do that. But, you know, it’s a lesson learned,” she told The Verge. It took a while for her to have the fraudulent songs taken down, “I became a nuisance,” she remarked. Even after that, it wasn’t a complete success. While the plagiarized tracks seem to have been removed from YouTube Music and Apple Music, at least one remains on Spotify, albeit under a different artist name but with the same title. Now there are several Murphy Campbells — “Naturally, I was excited about that,” remarked the genuine Murphy Campbell.
Spotify is trialing a new feature that would enable artists to manually verify tracks before they show up on their profiles, but Campbell is doubtful after her experience. “I feel like, each time a massive entity makes such commitments to musicians, it tends not to live up to expectations, but I’m curious to see how it works out in the future,” she expressed.
However, this was merely the onset of Campbell’s troubles.
On the day a Rolling Stone article was released detailing Campbell’s encounter with AI impersonators, a collection of videos were uploaded to YouTube via the distributor Vydia. These videos are not publicly viewable, and it remains unclear if anyone aside from the uploader, known as Murphy Rider, has viewed them. YouTube opted not to provide comments for this report.
These were utilized to assert ownership of content from several of Murphy Campbell’s videos. She received a notification from YouTube stating: “You are now sharing revenues with the copyright holders of the music identified in your video, Darling Corey.” The most puzzling aspect is that the tracks at the center of these claims are all in the public domain, including the renowned “In the Pines,” which dates back to at least the 1870s and has been reinterpreted by numerous artists from Lead Belly to Nirvana (as “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”).
Vydia has since resolved those claims, and spokesperson Roy LaManna stated that the individual who uploaded the videos has been banned from the platform. Of the more than 6,000,000 claims submitted by Vydia through YouTube’s Content ID system, only 0.02 percent were deemed invalid, which LaManna claims is “remarkable by industry standards.” He added, “We take pride in executing this correctly.”
LaManna also asserted that Vydia has no ties to Timeless IR or the AI videos that were released on streaming services labeled under Campbell’s name. Although the coincidence is dubious, LaManna insisted that the two occurrences are distinct.
Vydia has faced substantial backlash, including, as LaManna noted, “literal death threats” which resulted in office evacuations. Campbell is not letting Vydia off the hook, though she acknowledges that it’s not solely responsible. The intersection of generative AI, music distribution, and copyright is intricate, with numerous points of vulnerability and chances for exploitation. “I believe it runs deeper than we can comprehend,” Campbell stated.
