\u201cIt just came out of nowhere. I felt sick.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Monday, Gemma Hayes<\/a> discovered she had become the victim of AI<\/a> fraudsters after they added music purporting to be written by the award-winning singer-songwriter to her Spotify<\/a>, Apple Music<\/a> and YouTube<\/a> accounts. <\/p>\n \u201cI went online and saw that I had apparently released new music on all my streaming platforms: Apple Music, Spotify, my YouTube channel,\u201d Hayes says. \u201cThere was new music from me, which was not me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy manager was trying to call me. He texted going, \u2018Please call, there\u2019s been a deep fake AI thing with your music\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Hayes has released six studio albums over her career and become well known for a distinctive blend of spare indie rock, careful vocal phrasing, delicate electronica flourishes and occasional My Bloody Valentine<\/a>-esque walls of noise. She was nominated for the Mercury Prize<\/a> in 2003 and her most recent album, Blind Faith, was released to acclaim in 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n The fraudulent music seems designed to fool a casual fan into believing it could be from the west Cork-based singer-songwriter. The three \u2018new\u2019 tracks: Taxi to Piccadilly; Champagne and Cheap Perfume; and Melancholy in Stereo are all in the indie pop-rock vein. <\/p>\n On the first, against a bright upbeat guitar rock backing, a woman sings, \u2018Hey driver, step on the gas, we\u2019re making red lights turn to green real fast!\/ Taxi to Piccadilly, don\u2019t go slow.\u2019 On Champagne and Cheap Perfume, a woman intones, \u201cI am counting up my missing pence\/Tucking threads inside my tailored coat\/Making desperate economic sense.\u201d<\/p>\n The reaction from Hayes\u2019 audience has been one of confusion and disappointment. <\/p>\n \u201cThis was pushed as a notification from Apple Music to me yesterday so I got quite excited and then I listened and realised it was not yourself,\u201d wrote rackmani4 on Hayes\u2019 Instagram feed. <\/p>\n Another fan (@_edenphotography_) said: \u201cIt was pushed as new music on my Spotify account yesterday. I actually listened to all three tracks in full just trying to make sense of your \u2018new\u2019 sound.\u201d <\/p>\n Another fan, @fintan_scanlon, added, when he learned it was not her, \u2018Phew I thought you had gone off your rocker\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe dangerous part of it is that it\u2019s got drums, bass, electric guitar, a female vocal,\u201d says Hayes. \u201cThey are all things I have on my tracks. I would love if it was a completely different genre because then it would be obvious. It\u2019s bland, generic, soulless music.\u201d<\/p>\n The music arrived online on Sunday and so far Hayes and her management team have been unable to get the three songs taken down despite contacting each of the streaming services separately. Hayes is also listed on the songs as a player of drums, jazz horn and pedal steel guitar.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact of something or someone or a group of people impersonating me feels so unbelievably wrong and criminal. It\u2019s going on to a public platform. Every day it\u2019s up there, to me it feels like more subtle damage is being done. It discredits me as an artist.\u201d<\/p>\n Hayes is among a growing cohort of artists who are being targeted on streaming platforms by fraudsters. The likelihood is that the songs appearing on the platforms have not been crafted by actual artists, but by AI bots. The fraudsters in this case, says Hayes, appear to be coming from an Indonesian entity, credited as Composer & Lyricist. The bulk of royalties accruing for downloads will typically go to that person.<\/p>\n