A content ID abuse story
/!\This is the script of my intervention on the episode 9 of Game Dolls Advance.
/!\/!\/!\/!\/!\/!\ Most of the sites i take screenshots for this article are no longer findable because Layne McDonald has deleted a large part of his Youtube catalogue, his website has changed again, and now offers a cryptocurrency conversion tool probably to help families in need (it's sarcasm).
Today, I'm going to talk about a person, sailing in the troubled waters of capitalism, between music, cinema, artificial intelligence... Our story begins on a day like every day in the public domain, by receiving a notification of copyright infringement by Content ID on my own music.
Screenshot of Youtube Studio showing the list of uploads from the Rrrrrose Azerty channel. Is surrounded in yellow the mention Copyright in the section restrictions of the album Monplaisir - Draft.
It means, in general, that someone found my music somewhere, put it online on a distribution site – sites that allow music to be played on streaming sites like Spotify or Apple Music – and activated Content ID. Two things logically result from this:
- First, my music is found on streaming platforms under another name, whether it's a different name on the Artist label but also on the Song Name label. There is also a new image associated with the cover and sometimes the music is slightly altered, it can be an authentic remix of the song, or sometimes just a change in the tone of the song, a stretch in time, a crazy effect on the mix...
- Second, Content ID is activated. If you don't know Content ID, it's a digital fingerprint scnning robot developed by Google, one of the most popular but there are other ones like for example Audible Magic which is the digital fingerprint sensor that is used by Amazon for Twitch. Content ID allows you to completely block the use of a sound or video extract on Youtube and Soundcloud, or to get the monetization of online content using that same audio. This means that anyone using my music for commercial purposes, and they have the right to do, lost their monetization and the person usurping my work gets it.
So, as sometimes I like to do, and rage for the rest of the day, I look at all my albums uploaded on Youtube to check if I have received new notifications from Content ID. The year 2024 having been quite busy, I had not been able to do any checks for several months, so I was working on late notifications. A good ten notifications.
The task here consists of looking at the Youtube videos on which I receive notifications of copyright infringements, and then I contact the music distribution services that are responsible for the activation of Content ID by email. This requires finding the e-mail contact that can be well hidden in terms of use or going through a hell of a conversation with robots to get contact with a human responsible for infringement of Content ID or copyright. Then you have to write a message explaining the situation, wait between 2 weeks and several months for an answer, punctuated by an unknown number of recalls. This thing, I have to manage it several times a month sometimes to keep my catalogue of free music in the public domain accessible to all, and anyone doing licensed music has to manage this kind of usurpation. And that's when I get the notification myself, sometimes I don't get it, but I've got a single user of my music that then calls on the networks. I also want to thank them for this. If it happened to you and you want some help, here is a "how to" i did in the end of 2024 when i was discovering the whole I'm gonna talk about. And if you are in this situation and don't find help, please contact me
Anyway, where am I going with this? Well, on October 1st, I thought I was going to do that work to remove my infractions. I work on the most and there's a name that comes back several times, a particular Layne McDonald.
Screenshot of Youtube Studio, in the Copyright Information section of the album Monplaisir - Pas Chassé, there is a line called Content Used mentioning Layne McDonald's song Blew with a timecode.
On the screenshot, you will notice that it says "No impact" but it's because I don't monetize my Youtube videos. If I were monetizing, there would have been an indication that this person is getting money from my monetization.
Youtube screenshot of Layne McDonald's Action Investigation video page, the indication "uploaded 2 years ago" is noted, the screenshot dating from 2025.
Free Music Archive screenshot of the title Action Investigation of the album The Binge Watchers Score 1 by Komiku, the mention "released on April 09, 2017" is present.
I come across a music that directly bears the same name as the song that he took, it's called Action Investigation, which I released in 2017 under the nickname Komiku when I was obsessed with the music of Cristobal Tapia de Veer after watching Dirk Gently's first season.
There is something that catch my eye with this profile. It is first the profile photo of his Youtube channel and then the pseudo. It's a first name and a last name, which is quite rare, most of the time they are pseudos difficult to find by doing google researchs. Of course, there are a number of Layne McDonalds, but if we do a search with Layne McDonald and Music, the choices are very quickly restricted.
Screenshot of Layne McDonald's Youtube page with the "About" section open. It includes links to a personal website, an IMDB link, a Linkedin link and an introductory text to his work indicating "Support Families in Need with Every View" as well as keywords of personal development and an insistence that his work is charitable for children in need.
So I clicked on his youtube page, and I saw that he had a website. Unfortunately, I did not took screenshots of the website that it had at the beginning of October, and even using Wayback Machine, I did not find it because it looks like he's changing the aesthetics of his website very regularly, like every 2 months.
Screenshot of the personal website of Layne Mcdonald with the title "Art That Gives back" and the subtitle "Every Film, video, or song played gives back to families in need".
It's a little frustrating because there was a little sentence, in my memories, that was speaking at the third person saying he was reachable by phone to a particular number but that he didn't answer all the time because he was very busy working in his music recording studio. And it makes me laugh because, spoiler alert, I honestly think that he didn't record any of the songs available on his Spotify page.
Screenshot of Layne McDonald's website showing text, and album integration from Soundcloud.
Screenshot of comments on the soundcloud page of the album in question. Most comments say that it's wave noises.
So it's funny because right now on his website, he's promoting a new album called "Rise" that will be released in 2025, with personal and passionate stories of his love for Jesus Christ but when you click on the soundcloud, it refers to an artist page that's called Aria with titles that all call Sample Track uploaded about 7 years ago, and it's just wave sounds? Anyway, I see a contact form so I send him a message about the use of my music.
I continue my clean of the Content ID copyright infringements and fall back on a notification from Layne McDonald, this time for a song that he calls Do not Forgive and which is a song that I published under the nickname Monplaisir which is called Don't Forgive me that I released in 2017, a folk guitar improvisation like I did a lot.
Screenshot of Layne Mcdonald's Youtube Do Not Forgive page, uploaded a year ago.
Free Music Archive screenshot showing the page of Monplaisir's Don't Forgive Me title on the uploaded draft album on April 20, 2017.
I then come back to a new notification from him, this time for a song that he calls Blew, and which is a song that I published under the nickname Monplaisir which is called bleu, an improvisation of electric guitar with effects as I did a lot too.
Screenshot of Blew's Youtube page by Layne McDonald, uploaded a year ago.
Free Music Archive screenshot showing the page of Monplaisir's bleu song from the album Pas Chassé, uploaded on January 16, 2018.
That dude makes me a little angry so I start trying to look for things on that person and I come across his Twitter page.
Screenshot of Layne Mcdonald's Twitter page showing an avatar clearly made with artificial intelligence, a banner indicating that he is executive producer and creative coach with recommendations as well, and a list of titles he had in 2023 and a list of links to see his work.
It indicates that he has worked in film, television and music for three decades, that he has worked on Hollywood blockbusters, with musicians who have won awards and that he has a PhD ! I still don't know of what, but he has a PhD ! Incredible curriculum !
Screenshot of the stock image page of Layne McDonald's site showing photos of locations and drones as well as descriptive text.
I'm curious now, so I travel through his website and I see that he sells, in addition to free music packs, stock images. In his description, it indicates that the purchase of images helps raise funds to help families fight against childhood disease, and that a purchase makes it possible for you to get a very nice picture but also helps a family! We don't know which families, there's no connection to an ONG or a foundation in case we want to make a direct donation... What a philanthropist ! And it continues on a description of who Layne McDonald is with more detail, and especially on his work. He worked on the Passion of the Christ and Polar Express! That means he has an IMDB page!
Screenshot of Layne McDonald's IMDB page.
We learn that he does montage, especially on films like The dark Knight Rises, but also for clips by Will.i.am, Justin Bierber and Nicki Minaj.
I keep searching a bit and by chance i'm opening the Do not forgive page song on Apple Music, and it shows people credited to composition and lyrics.
Screenshot of Layne Mcdonald's Do Not Forgive Apple Music page.
It is metadata written during upload on the distribution site before activation of Content ID. There are two names. First, strangely honest, mine under the pseudo Monplaisir. But also Day Butler.
And you're going to tell me, "But Rose, who is Day Butler? »
Screenshot of Jay Butler's Apple Music page.
So I've been looking on Apple Music and this person has a page with two albums! And it's funny because there's an album called Diary Pigeons! Waw ! Someone who loves pigeons! Like me! I guess there's nothing to do with my music!
Screenshot of Jay Butler's Apple Music Act of Fate page.
Free Music Archive screenshot of Monplaisir's PIGEONS ARE THE BEST album.
So when you launch the songs, it's literally the album that I released under the name Monplaisir, which is called PIGEONS ARE THE BEST, and the person changed all tracks of the songs and unfortunately did not keep the title of the 4th track called Hard XxX Ultra Yaoi Psychedelic Death of Vintage Cluster Bomb Of Glitter. Their song is called Act of fate.
What's funny is that when we go see other pieces that Layne Mcdonald stole, it's not the same credits that come out. For Action Investigation, it was him alone who composed, not Komiku.
Screenshot of the Apple Music page of Free to You music by Layne Mcdonald.
Free Music Archive screenshot showing the song Free To Use 3 from Monplaisir's album Free To Use.
For Free to You which is a song composed under the name Monplaisir which is called Free To Use 3 which is an impro of folk guitar – yes, I did not have inspiration that day for song names, it's the year I released 80 albums, shut up – he credits Gedeo to the performance and Christopher Pabon to the composition/lyrics.
And I see you coming "But Rose, who is Gedeo?" Hey hey I looked for on Apple Music and this person released an album! And it's funny because all the songs are the same duration as all the songs on the album Free To Use released under Monplaisir!
Screenshot of Zrem's Apple Music page by Layne McDonald.
Screenshot by Free Music Archive of the ZREM track of Alpha Hydrae's And Recule album.
For Zrem, who is a piece of a noise harsh drone that I published in 2015 under my first musical pseudo Alpha Hydrae, he credited The Wander Found which, I give you without suspense, has two albums on his page and which are only rip off my two albums released under Alpha Hydrae called Et Recule and Vaisselle Sale.
Well, I think it's clear that Layne Mcdonald stole a lot of my catalog, and credits fake artist accounts on the platforms. That, I don't know where it comes from. I can't find links between all these accounts like that with just internet researches. I don't know if Layne Mcdonald came across my music through their accounts, if these accounts are maybe royalty free music music salesmen like we can find on Fiverr (I've conducted an investigation on this subject you can find on my blog), or if they're fake accounts that belong to Layne Mcdonald himself.
When you listen to the rest of Layne Mcdonald, you come across some generic music, especially on everything that affects electronic music. For anything labeled before 2023, it can be either a personal production or royalty free music. Since I don't recognize these musics, there is a world where it is himself who produced the songs, but I have a doubt. it could be royalty free music, or it is music produced via an algorithm or an AI.
I still asked myself the question. Because on Qobuz, it is possible to have a metadata which is the production company or the label.
Screenshot of the Qobuz page of the album Music Laboratory, Pt.1 by Layne McDonald.
And on Layne Mcdonald's albums, you can read "LM Records", which could be an abbreviation for "Layne Mcdonald Records" and if you click on it, you see a lot of things that are not him. So I wondered if he was an album producer, maybe? And in fact, I looked for one of the artists on these lists, Rebecka Larsdotter, it was L&M Records, not LM. Metadata sent to distribution sites seem to not like symbols like &, which adds even more to the confusion of everything I have just written here.
Screenshot of Layne Mcdonald's Spotify discography, where there are many artificial intelligence cover arts.
hat has become of Layne McDonald lately? He produced 28 albums in 2024, an impressive result. And when you listen to the quality of the sound, especially the voices, there is a strange effect. For me there is no doubt to have, it is music generated by artificial intelligence. Layne McDonald isn't at his first try on it, the images he uses as avatars are mostly generated by IA, so why stop in such a good way.
Finally, he didn't answer to any of my messages. Maybe he's stuck in his music generation studio by artificial intelligence.
There would still be plenty of tracks to dig into to understand a little more the Layne McDonald Universe, especially on metadatas or by searching on all tracks for potential links with artists accounts.
But then what does this story tells us?
- First thing. WAW, Layne Mcdonald, that dude worked on big-budget film, he's in the papers of all the big productions and he spends his time sucking free music. I don't know from when I risk the defamation trial from a libertarian in power here, but what a scum. You do it like you give to families in need, but you pump all the money from people who literally give their creativity to all those who can't afford to have access to it and people who want to use it in their right way.
- Second thing. It shows how much there's just no attention accorded on the use of Content ID or digital creativity usurpation - because here I'm talking only about music, but it's obviously something we find in the work of image, software... Of course, I stried to contact librarian composers to fight together, find ways, set up a lobby or unionize to defend Creative Commons licenses, but there has never been anything concrete that came out of it other than people who say "go to court". Uh, well, no, I don't have the means or the spoons to do it alone. The problem is not legal action, in fact, it's isolation. To have to fight on its own constantly one of the consequences of the expansion of capitalism to preserve a collective cultural resource is already draining. It sometimes becomes absurd when you put it all back in the middle of reality, it almost seems futile to lose your energy defending free access to a piece of digital sound file. When I exhaust myself at this, alone, it feels really vain.
- Third thing and that will be my conclusion. It is once again a demonstration of how the capitalist industry of digital music currently works. The distribution sites do nothing to prevent the appearance of creativity usurpation, do zero background check of the rights before the activation of a tool as powerful as Content ID, collaborate with the right-holders lobbies, and for some practice union busting as Distrokid this year and Songtradr last year at Bandcamp.
Regarding streaming platforms, they are relatively similar even if the bottom of the streaming service gutter is Spotify. The platform pulls up false accounts to inflate the statistics, nothing is done to make its catalogue accessible to the emergence of anything. It is also a platform that wanted to file a complaint against 5 researchers who wanted transparency on how Spotify was doing its data processing, which gave them the idea of writing in 2014 the very good Spotify Teardown survey. A few days ago, journalist Liz Pelly wrote an article called "The Ghost in the Machine" in Harpers magazine on the PFC program, Perfect Fit Content, developed internally at Spotify, where it is learned that songs recorded specifically for this program, which Spotify will pay less, had to be forcibly inserted into playlists suggested to listeners, flying space to music composers who see their revenues decline. These people creating for the PFC often have countless false names of artists that do not echo any existence other than on Spotify, and these creations are produced only to lower costs, and will inexorably leave room as music composed by artificial intelligence. On rappelle que sous prétexte d’accélérer l’usage de l’IA au sein de Spotify, 600 postes ont été supprimés en janvier 2023, 200 en juin 2023 et 1200 d’annoncés de supprimés en décembre 2023. On rappelle aussi que Daniel Ek, le CEO de Spotify, gagne plus que Taylor Swift et Drake réuni·e·s et investit dans des sociétés de développement d’IA militaire en soutien à l’armée israélienne, hein.
Alors est-ce qu’une bonne résolution en 2025, ça serait pas le piratage et l’abandon progressif des sites de streaming accessibles par sites de distribution ? Et aussi, une réelle fédération des créateurices numériques et un p’tit lobby de protection du domaine publique ? Voilà !
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