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A folk musician became a target for AI fakes and a copyright troll

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A folk musician became a target for AI fakes and a copyright troll
Published: April 04, 2026 at 17:52 | Source: theverge.com
Entertainment Close Entertainment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Entertainment AI Close AI Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All AI Policy Close Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Policy A folk musician became a target for AI fakes and a copyright troll Murphy Campbell plays public domain ballads, but YouTube accepted the copyright claim anyway. by Terrence O'Brien Close Terrence O'Brien Weekend Editor Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Terrence O'Brien Apr 4, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC Link Share Gift Murphy Campbell is at the center of a brewing storm around AI and a broken copyright system. | Image: Murphy Campbell Entertainment Close Entertainment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Entertainment AI Close AI Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All AI Policy Close Policy Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Policy A folk musician became a target for AI fakes and a copyright troll Murphy Campbell plays public domain ballads, but YouTube accepted the copyright claim anyway. by Terrence O'Brien Close Terrence O'Brien Weekend Editor Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Terrence O'Brien Apr 4, 2026, 5:52 PM UTC Link Share Gift Part Of All the latest in AI 'music' see all updates Terrence O'Brien Close Terrence O'Brien Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Terrence O'Brien is the Verge's weekend editor. He has over 18 years of experience, including 10 years as managing editor at Engadget. In January, folk artist Murphy Campbell discovered several songs on her Spotify profile that did not belong there . They were songs that she had recorded, but she'd never uploaded them to Spotify, and something was off about the vocals. She quickly surmised that someone had pulled performances of the songs she posted to YouTube, created AI covers, and uploaded them to streaming platforms under her name. I ran one of the songs, "Four Marys", through two different AI detectors, and it seemed to support her suspicions with both saying it was probably AI-generated. Campbell was shocked, "I was kind of under the impression that we had a little bit more checks in place before someone could just do that. But, you know, a lesson learned there," she told The Verge . It took some time before Campbell managed to get the fake songs removed, "I became a pest," she said. And even then, it wasn't a complete victory. While the offending tracks don't appear to be available on YouTube Music or Apple Music anymore, at least one can still be found on Spotify, just under a different artist profile, but with the same name. There are now multiple Murphy Campbells — "Obviously, I was thrilled by that," the real Murphy Campbell said. Spotify is testing a new system that would allow artists to manually approve songs before they appear on their profile, but Campbell is skeptical after being burned. "I feel like, every time, an entity that's that large makes a promise like that to musicians. It seems to just not be what they made it out to be, but I'll be curious to try it out in the future," she said. This was just the beginning of Campbell's nightmare, however. Related Musicians are getting really tired of this AI clone 'bullshit' On the day that a Rolling Stone article was published, discussing Campbell's brush with AI imitators , a series of videos were uploaded to YouTube through distributor Vydia . Those videos have not been posted publicly, and it's unclear if anyone other than the uploader, who goes by Murphy Rider, has seen them. YouTube declined to comment for this story. Those were used to claim ownership of the material in several of Murphy Campbell's videos. Campbell received a notice from YouTube reading: "You are now sharing revenues with the copyright owners of the music detected in your video, Darling Corey." The most confusing part, 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 (as "Where Did You Sleep Last Night"). Vydia has since released those claims, and spokesperson Roy LaManna says the person who uploaded the videos has been banned from their platform. Of the over 6,000,000 claims filed by Vydia through YouTube's Content ID system, 0.02 percent were found to be invalid, which LaManna says is, "by industry standards is
  • Entertainment Close Entertainment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
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  • Follow Follow See All Policy A folk musician became a target for AI fakes and a copyright troll Murphy Campbell plays public domain ballads, but YouTube accepted the copyright claim anyway.

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