In this episode, Raia connects two stories that look separate but aren't: Swift's trademark filings through TAS Rights Management, and Björn Ulvaeus's demands on behalf of CISAC's five million creators at this week's IMS Ibiza. Together, they reveal a single structural problem at the center of the AI music economy.

In this episode:

• Swift's voice trademark applications — what they cover, what they signal, and why almost no one else has the infrastructure to attempt this
• The IMS Electronic Music Business Report numbers: 651% revenue growth, 63 million monthly active users, $333 million — and what it means that the artists who trained these models aren't sharing in that
• 75,000 AI-generated tracks uploaded to Deezer every single day (44% of all new uploads) — and what that kind of competition actually does to a working musician's release
• Ulvaeus at IMS Ibiza: transparency, opt-out rights, fair payment, and a seat at the table before deals are signed
• The streaming-era "breakage" parallel — and why the same conditions are forming right now in AI licensing
• The real story: not AI. The asymmetry between artists with resources and artists without.

Before you close this app:

• If you have unregistered music, demos, or co-writes — look into platforms like ViNIL for registration and protection.
• If you're signed or distributed through a major partner, ask your admin what AI licensing agreements they're part of. You have a right to know.

I'm Raia. This is The Co-Write Room.

• (00:00) - Cold Open
• (00:45) - The $333M Number
• (01:45) - The Deezer Stat
• (02:20) - Who's Not in the Room
• (03:10) - Breakage, Again
• (03:50) - The Asymmetry
• (04:20) - Action Steps + Outro

This week on The Co-Write Room, Raia breaks down three stories from a single week in April 2025 that, taken together, tell you exactly where the music industry stands on AI right now. Not where it's headed. Where it is today.

In this episode:

• The IngaRose story — an AI-generated R&B persona built on Suno that hit #1 on the U.S. and global iTunes charts on April 17th, simultaneously topping the UK, Canada, France, and New Zealand. Linked to a South Carolina producer with a documented history of chart manipulation. The distribution pipeline that allowed it? Still open.

• Splice's new Variations, Craft, and Magic Fit tools — built on top of 3 million human-licensed samples, with compensation baked in at the infrastructure level. When AI generates a variation of your sound, you get paid. This is proof the architecture doesn't have to be extractive.

• Spotify's Artist Profile Protection — a new opt-in beta letting artists approve releases before they go live under their name. Directionally right, but arriving in 2026 while the crisis is already active. And the artists most at risk are the last to get access.

Three stories. One week. The same question underneath all of them:

Who captures the value that musicians create?

Action steps from this episode:

• Check your Spotify for Artists profile right now for any releases you didn't upload.

• If Artist Profile Protection is available to you, turn it on. If not, screenshot your current catalog.

• If you create samples or sounds, look at Splice's Variations model and ask whether your current platforms offer anything close to it.

• Before you sign any AI deal: ask whether your work is traceable, and whether you get paid every time it's used as a source.

The Co-Write Room is a weekly podcast for music creators and music industry professionals navigating AI, distribution, and the future of music business. New episodes drop weekly.

• (00:00) - Timestamps
• (00:00) - Chapter 2
• (00:00) - |CHAPTER |DESCRIPTION
• (00:00) - | Cold Open | The IngaRose question: if charts can be gamed this easily, why be a musician?
• (00:28) - | Intro & Context | Welcome from Raia. Three stories, one week — this is where the industry is today.
• (00:55) - | Story 1: IngaRose | AI R&B persona hits #1 in 5 countries simultaneously. The Suno-built artist, the Dallas Little connection, and the unfixed distribution pipeline.
• (02:18) - | Story 2: Splice | Variations, Craft, and Magic Fit launch. The model that pays source creators for every AI output — and why it's a proof of concept the industry must measure itself against.
• (03:52) - | Story 3: Spotify | Artist Profile Protection beta. Directionally correct, arriving too late, protecting the wrong people first.
• (05:10) - | The Bigger Picture | Three stories, one crisis: who controls distribution infrastructure, compensation, and protection?
• (05:55) - | Action Steps | Three things to do before you close this app.
• (06:38) - | Outro | Raia signs off.

"The Gap Between Possible and Inevitable"

Raia breaks down the Suno licensing stalemate, Kevin Griffin's SoundBreak AI launch, Anthropic's Mythos AI self-restriction, and Seedance 2.0 — and what all of it means for the artist who's trying to stay irreplaceable.

Show Notes

Fresh off Coachella — Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, Bad Bunny, Nine Inch Nails, Laufey, Wet Leg, and more — Raia lands back in the news cycle to find AI Music Wars waiting. Today's episode tracks four stories that are each about the same underlying tension: machine-speed change outpacing the legal, creative, and institutional structures trying to contain it.

Story 1 — The Suno Stalemate The Udio settlements with Universal Music Group and Warner Music in late 2025 set what looked like a precedent. They proved labels could extract compensation from AI music platforms. Suno watched all of it — and still hasn't settled. Negotiations with UMG and Sony Music have stalled with no deal and no clear timeline. The implication: precedent isn't pressure. Suno keeps generating music while the clock runs. And independent artists — whose catalogs were ingested the same way without a label negotiating on their behalf — have no seat at any table.

Story 2 — Kevin Griffin and SoundBreak Better Than Ezra frontman and working Nashville songwriter Kevin Griffin didn't wait for legislative protection. He launched SoundBreak — a fully licensed, ethically trained AI co-writing platform built around Nashville's collaborative songwriting model. The human songwriter stays at the center of the session as creative lead, not passenger. In the same week as the Suno stalemate headlines, SoundBreak is a direct counterargument: songwriter consent as competitive advantage, not compliance checkbox.

Story 3 — Anthropic Restricts Mythos AI Anthropic discovered its Mythos model had developed the capability to autonomously execute cyberattacks at machine speed — faster than any human security team could detect or respond. They restricted it themselves. No regulator forced the move. First confirmed case of a frontier AI model being pulled back specifically for offensive autonomous capability. The music industry is still waiting for its AI platforms to make a similar choice.

Story 4 — Seedance 2.0 Lands in CapCut Hollywood-grade AI video generation quietly rolled out as a free feature inside CapCut — no press conference, no rollout fanfare. Just a product update on the platform where hundreds of millions of people, including most independent music marketers and DIY artists, already live. The bar for visual content resets overnight. The discovery environment floods with machine-generated everything.

The Takeaway The artists winning right now aren't rejecting AI entirely — and they're not handing their creative identity over to it. They're identifying what only they can prove is real, and building around that irreducible truth. Nashville's professional identity — songwriting as a human, collaborative, emotionally specific act — is a strategic asset right now. But only if it's defended.

Listener Assignment Find one piece of content you've posted in the last 30 days and ask: does this make it obvious that a human being with a specific life and a specific story made this? If the answer is no — that's your next creative assignment.

• (00:00) - — Open / Coachella recap and the pivot into AI Music Wars
• (00:15) - — Story 1: The Udio settlements and what the Suno stalemate actually signals
• (00:30) - — Why independent artists are the ones most exposed in the licensing gap
• (00:45) - — Story 2: Kevin Griffin launches SoundBreak — the inside-out approach to ethical AI
• (00:30) - — Why the SoundBreak timing against the Suno news is not accidental
• (00:45) - — Story 3: Anthropic restricts Mythos AI — the first self-imposed pullback on offensive autonomous capability
• (00:15) - — Story 4: Seedance 2.0 drops inside CapCut — Hollywood-grade AI video, free, on the app your fans already use
• (00:30) - — The synthesis: machine-speed change, two different responses — Anthropic chose restraint; the music industry is still waiting
• (00:30) - — What the artists winning right now actually have in common
• (00:15) - — The listener assignment
• (00:00) - — Outro

We follow up on Murphy Campbell, the North Carolina folk artist whose Spotify profile was hijacked by AI voice clones and whose original YouTube recordings were hit with fraudulent copyright claims. Her story now has a partial resolution — and a clear lesson about ACR database registration that every independent artist needs to hear.

Then: SoundOn, TikTok's distribution platform, announces a Derivative Works Detection System built on ACR Cloud fingerprinting — a direct response to the kind of exploit that hit Campbell.

And then: At South by Southwest, the founders of a marketing agency called Chaotic Good described their business on the record. They manufacture viral moments on TikTok for labels. They call it trend simulation. The discovery algorithm you thought was neutral is not.

Three stories. One pattern. This is The Co-Write Room.

(Re)Sources:

• Vydia (vydia.com)
• ACR Cloud (acrcloud.com)
• Chaotic Good (digital marketing agency)
• Billboard's Reporting on Chaotic Good
• SoundOn, TikTok's distribution platform
• The Verge's reporting on Suno and Universal Music Group

• (00:00) - this episode:
• (00:00) - — Introduction and Murphy Campbell recap
• (00:39) - — The Spotify voice clone attack
• (00:58) - — The YouTube copyright claim exploit, and Roy LaManna's response
• (01:28) - — What ACR databases are and why registration matters
• (02:10) - — SoundOn and ACR Cloud's Derivative Works Detection System
• (02:55) - — Chaotic Good and trend simulation at Billboard's On The Record with Kristin Robinson
• (03:24) - — What it all means for independent artists
• (04:09) - — The pattern connecting all three stories
• (04:45) - — Breaking: Suno vs. Universal Music Group update
• (05:25) - — Closing thoughts

What if the biggest threat to your music career in 2026 isn't that AI is replacing you — it's that nobody in this industry has any incentive to admit it's already happening?

In this episode, Raia covers two stories that look separate but aren't.

Murphy Campbell is an independent folk singer from North Carolina who performs traditional public domain ballads. In January, she discovered that AI had cloned her voice, uploaded fake songs to her Spotify artist profile without her consent, and that a bad actor had then used YouTube's Content ID system to file copyright claims against her own recordings. Songs that legally belong to no one. Claimed against her. The platform accepted it.

The mechanism that made this possible: Audio Content Recognition databases — ACR — a fingerprinting system that tells platforms a song exists and who it belongs to. Major label artists are covered automatically. Most independent artists don't know it's a requirement. Campbell's recordings weren't registered. A bad actor noticed the gap first.

Meanwhile, a Rolling Stone investigation found that 87% of music producers admit to using AI in at least one stage of their creative process — and almost none of them are disclosing it. Suno's CEO calls his product "the Ozempic of the music industry." Producer Young Guru estimates that more than half of sample-based hip-hop now uses AI-generated retro soul samples, rerouting royalties away from the heirs of Black soul artists. Producer David Baron says undisclosed AI-generated music has already hit the Billboard charts, and the industry has no working software to detect it.

These are not separate problems. They are one problem at different levels. The thread connecting them is the absence of accountability.

Your one action item: Find out whether your recordings are registered in an ACR database. If you distribute through DistroKid, TuneCore, or CD Baby, you are likely covered. If you release directly to YouTube without formal distribution, you may have a gap. Close it.

References:

• Murphy Campbell Deepfaked
• Rolling Stone - Don't Ask, Don't Tell (March 2026)
• Suno CEO Mikey Shulman quote
• Young Guru estimate on AI soul samples
• David Baron / The Lumineers
• Spotify Artist Profile Protection beta

• (00:00) - — Cold Open
• (00:11) - — Introduction
• (00:14) - — Murphy Campbell: The First Robbery
• (01:03) - — The Second Robbery: Content ID Weaponized
• (01:24) - — The ACR Gap Explained
• (02:04) - — How Campbell Became the Infringer
• (02:20) - — Are You Protected? Distributor Guidance
• (02:52) - — A Cultural Preservation Crisis
• (03:09) - — Spotify's Response
• (03:24) - — The Industry's Don't Ask, Don't Tell
• (03:53) - — The Ozempic of the Music Industry
• (04:04) - — Young Guru: Where the Royalties Are Going
• (04:33) - — The Honor System Has Collapsed
• (04:50) - — Nashville's Invisible Casualties
• (05:10) - — One Problem at Two Levels
• (05:42) - — The Closing Argument
• (05:59) - — Your One Action Item
• (06:19) - — Outro

Suno claims "the best music starts with a human." This week, we tested that claim — three stories that together tell one story:

On this episode, Raia covers three stories that together tell one story:

• Suno launched version 5.5 with voice cloning features that let anyone embed a singer's vocal identity into AI-generated tracks. 
• SlopTracker launched a public dashboard tracking how much of Spotify's royalty pool may be flowing to AI-generated accounts. 
• MusicAtlas launched the Robin Film Grant — $1,000 to help a filmmaker license real, human-made music instead of generating it with AI.

Three stories. One through-line. The tagline and the business model are not the same thing. That gap is where artists are losing.

Sources:

• Suno v5.5 launch — Music Business Worldwide, March 30, 2026
• SlopTracker launch — Hypebot, March 31, 2026
• Robin Film Grant — Hypebot, April 1, 2026

Actions from this episode:

• Vocalists: Read Suno's Terms of Service before uploading your voice to their platform
• Filmmakers: Apply for the Robin Film Grant at musicatlas.ai/robin/film-grant — deadline May 15, 2026
• Independent artists: Register with the Artist Rights Alliance at artistrightsalliance.org — free membership

Follow The Co-Write Room: New episodes covering AI, music, and the future of everything creative.