Musicians release songs in their names on the secret of fraudsters

Last month, award -winning singer Emily Portman received a message from a fan, praising his new album and stated that “English folk music is in good hands”.

This would usually be a praise, but the Sheffield-based artist was shocked.

So he followed a link that was posted by the fan and was taken as his latest release. “But I did not recognize it because I did not release a new album,” says Portman.

“I clicked an album online everywhere and discovered an album – Spotify and iTunes and all online platforms.

“It was called Occa, and it was music that was clearly AI-well, but it was cleverly trained, I think, on me.”

The names of 10 tracks were such as Thyme of Thyme and Silent Chulha – who can choose, which were “unknown” for the title. This was something that Portman, who won the BBC Public Award in 2013, found “really scary”.

When she clicked to listen, the voice – it is believed that she was a bit away, but “perhaps my closest in a folk style that can produce AI”, she says. Instrumentation was also equally similar.

While the AI-actual music is online rife, it is often released under fictional names, or mimics large stars, but it usually does not appear on their official streaming pages.

Now there is a growing trend, however, installed (but not superstars) to target artists by fake albums or songs that suddenly appear on their pages on spotify and other streaming services. Even dead musicians have added the AI-new “new” material to their catalogs.

Portman does not know why the album is named under its name or why. He was incorrectly credited as an artist, writer and copyright holder. The credits had the manufacturer Freddy Howells – but she says that the name is nothing for her, and there is no mark of the manufacturer or musician of that name.

For music, while it was enough to convince some fans, the lack of real human creative input made it “empty and ancient” sound, she says.

“I will never be able to sing completely to the tune. And that’s not the case. I don’t want. I am a human.”

A few days later, another album popped up on Portman’s streaming pages. This time, fewer efforts were made to follow it. It was “20 track of instrumental drive”, she says. “Just aa slop.”

She filed copyright complaints to take the albums down, and says that the episode has prepared her again “believing in the importance of real creativity, and how it moved to people”.

“I hope AI music did not do this for people,” he continues. “Although I received an email saying to someone,” Where is the orka? It is repeating. ” Therefore, people have been hoodwink by it. ,

Anyone who posts an online album will receive any royalty, but no song on the ork had no more than 2,000 plays on the spotf – so the revenue would not exceed $ 6 (£ 4.40) per track.

According to music industry analysts, about luminate 99,000 songs are uploaded on streaming services every dayUsually through dozens of distribution services, which ask uploaders to present the details of the artist.

If that information is incorrect, and a song is wrongly listed under the name of an existing artist, it is down to their label to complain and remove it.

Portman says that some platforms were in a hurry to remove Occa from their platforms, but Spotify took three weeks, and she still has not controlled its SPOTIFY artist profile.

In a statement, Spotify said: “These albums were incorrectly added to the wrong profile of a separate artist by the same name, and were removed once the flag.”

Portman Question. Although there is another singer of the same name on Spotify, the albums did not look like him and had not been added to his profile since then.

She says that the “crisis” experience “seems like some beautiful diastopian’s beginning” – and also highlights the lack of legal safety measures for the artists.

He suspects that independent artists are being targeted because Star names have more security and more power that is rapidly removed by fraud release.

Like Portman, New York -based musician, producer and lyricist Josh Kofman, who was played in the folklore album of Taylor Swift, was alerted for fake new content by his audience.

“I just started receiving messages from fans and friends about some new music, and how much shift it was [stylistically],” He says.

“I think most people were hip for the fact that it was someone else who was just using my artist profile, as a way to release some strange music that was clearly a computer.”

In the case of Cofman, his identity was used to release a track to someone, named Huz Love Me, who looked like “a Casio keyboard Demo with Broken English Lyrics”.

“It was shameful and then just misleading,” he says. “it [music] Is it what we do, right? This is the signature of our soul, and that someone else can walk there and just has such access … “

He is one of many American and folk -Rock artists who have been posted fake tracks using their names in recent weeks – apparently all from the same source.

Others include the Wilco Frontman Jeff Twidy, Jeff Tilman (now known as Father John Misty), Sam Beam (aka Iron & Wine), Teddy Thompson and Jacob Dylan.

All releases used the same style of AI artwork and credited for three record labels, with two genius with Indonesian names. Many listed the same name as a lyricist – Zayan Malik Maharadika.

The name is also credited with other songs, which mimic the real American Christian musicians and a metalcore band.

Spotify stated that he flagged the issue with the distributor and removed these tracks as he “violated our policy against implementing another person or brand.”

It said that it will “remove any distributor that allows this type of material on our platforms”.

Cofman created a playlist of all the tracks he could find and gave it an abusive name. “It is more fun to laugh about it than it feels bad about it,” they say. “But it is disappointing that this can happen.”

And it was strange to him, as a musician and producer who usually goes “under the radar”, is targeted. “Why not go for a elder?” He asks. “If you are trying to accumulate any kind of royalty.”

Where any royalty can occur, he has no idea. “I don’t even know what the enemy is, to be honest,” they say. “Is this a computer? Is it a person who is sitting somewhere to develop this music?”

One thing is sure – he wants companies like Spotiff to be more active about preventing fraud music appearing on their platforms.

Tatiana Sirisano from Media and Technology Analysis Company Media Research says that AI is “making it easier for fraud” to fool “which are also more” passive “in the algorithm era.

She thinks that bad actors who presented as real -life artists are hoping that their fraud track “will rack enough streams” – hundreds of thousands – to earn them a good payday.

“I think AI fakes are targeting low-minded artists in the hope that their plans fly under the radar, if they were to target a superstar who could immediately get the spotfit on the line,” she notes.

But streaming services and distributors are “hard work” and are getting better in spotting it, she insists, “irony is that also using AI and machine learning!

“I think it is clear for everyone that every stakeholder should do his share,” she says. “But it is complex.”

When a new song appeared last month on the verified artist page of the American country singer Blaze Fole, it came as a big surprise for Craig McDonald’s owner Craig McDonald – not at least because Foli died in 1989.

“AI shock”, as McDonald’s said, was obviously not in Foli’s “Texas singer-song to heart”.

“Blaze had a song writing talent, but with that talent, a total authenticity,” he says. “As they say, three cords and truths. And it was not clearly.”

McDonald, who runs the Lost Art Record, is worried that AI can damage the credibility of artists such as Dups Foli, especially for those who do not know their sound.

What would Foli have made from all this? McDonald’s said, “Blaze would have liked it because the picture that actually dropped her down, removed about 30LB and also let her get a modern haircut.”

“But he will also say,” I want 10% of a penny that is collecting a spotify. Send that path. “

Given how the streaming era has already made a big dent in the income of many artists, Emily Portman says that this affair has felt like a “very low jerk”.

At the same time, along with trying to deal with her faceless AI Impostor, she is now recording her first (real) single album for 10 years – which takes off the opposite of AI, time, money and deep personal creativity. She says that it will cost at least £ 10,000 to make it, producing, releasing and promoting it to pay for those who play, and promote it.

But the result, he is excited, something real and human will be.

“I’m really keen to bring some real music to the world!”