Thomas Cussins, who founded and runs Ineffable Music Group, told Digital Music News in May 2026 that an AI-made copy of a song by his artist Stick Figure had gone viral and was earning money that never reached the musician.
Stick Figure, an American reggae and dub act, became unexpectedly famous in Afrikaans-speaking parts of South Africa in the Covid years, once a DJ there who had taken his radio show online started playing "Angels Above Me". Cussins says a version then surfaced with a synthetic female-sounding voice and a techno take on the beat. It kept the lyrics, melody and structure, but named neither the writer nor the artist.
By his account it multiplied into thousands of versions and huge numbers of dance and lifestyle clips, moved on to YouTube and Spotify, and climbed to number two on Shazam's global chart, bringing in royalty income he puts in the tens of thousands of dollars.
In a few months, he says, the problem grew from petty theft into theft on a global scale. Cussins argues that chasing takedowns one by one cannot keep up. He wants distributors of AI music to be required to identify and credit the source, send most of the revenue to the original creators and leave composition publishing entirely with the songwriter. He also backs user-centric payouts, pointing to Deezer's model and its labelling of AI tracks. In his view this would give AI music makers a legitimate path while protecting the ecosystem, and keep independent music something the next generation can still make a living from.
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