HAVEN.’s ‘I Run’ Was Poised To Be a Hit — Until Allegations of AI Deepfaking Slowed It Down

Even before its release to streaming services, “I Run,” a dance/EDM track by the artist HAVEN., was a viral sensation online, amassing millions of plays on TikTok after it was teased on Oct. 10. “I love this song so much,” said one TikTok commenter. “DROP THIS RIGHT NOW PLEASEEEE,” commented another.

For HAVEN., a new artist project from British producers Harrison Walker and Jacob Donaghue, who also makes music under the name Waypoint, it was the kind of debut that could change the trajectory of their lives. But now, a swirl of legal complaints and takedown notices have engulfed the song, resulting in it being removed and reuploaded to streaming services multiple times — and stopping its momentum just as it was poised to reach the Billboard charts.

The frenzy of activity around “I Run” prompted multiple A&Rs at major and independent music companies to look into signing the track and the people that created it as it awaited official release. It also caught the attention of the popular UK R&B singer Jorja Smith. The uncredited female vocalist on “I Run” sounded eerily similar to Smith, prompting the singer to to post a video of herself on TikTok using it. She asked in the caption: “who actually is this?” and noted in a reply to a comment “it’s not meeeee” when fans asked if she sang on the track or if it was AI. (The video has since been deleted). HAVEN. jumped in, adding #jorjasmith to a now-deleted social post about the song, according to a member of their team. “It was more so just embracing that it does sound like her,” a spokesperson for HAVEN. said. “It became an organic trend.”

That’s when questions started circulating about the origins of HAVEN.’s viral track — and whether or not it was an unauthorized AI deepfake of Smith’s voice. Ultimately, the song was released in late October by Isekai Records, Broke Records and AAO Records, and it continued to amass major listenership — so much so that it quickly reached #11 on the U.S. Spotify chart and #25 on Spotify globally. Meanwhile videos using the song kept going viral on social media, including one in which the rapper Offset apparently played the song during a Boiler Room DJ set, with the video overlaid with text that said, “Unreleased Jorja Smith.” (The song was not actually used during Offset’s recent Boiler Room set.)

Just as the song was taking off, it was taken down from streaming services. The Orchard — to whom Smith is signed — as well as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and International Federation of the Phonograph Industry (IFPI), issued dozens of takedown notices for “I Run” upon its official release, according to screenshots of the notices, alleging various issues with the song, including that the song “misrepresents” another artist and that it constitutes copyright infringement.

As a result of the dispute, the song has also been withheld from the Billboard charts, including the Billboard Hot 100, on which some chart prognosticators had predicted it would debut this week. Billboard reserves the right to withhold or remove titles from appearing on the charts that are known to be involved in active legal disputes related to copyright infringement that may extend to the deletion of such content on digital service providers.

Broke Records tells Billboard that it filed dozens of counter-notices, asserting HAVEN.’s ownership of the song and noting that no lawsuit has been filed against them to date in association with the song. (The Orchard declined to comment.)

Donaghue and Walker maintain that they wrote and produced the song in ProTools, sharing screenshots and videos of the ProTools session files and stems with Billboard. They admit, however, that “AI-assisted vocal processing” was used to “transform solely [their] voice” in the song. Specifically, they say they used AI music generator Suno to turn Walker’s voice into that of a woman’s — without referencing Smith. According to Suno prompts shared with Billboard, the producers wrote into the model a prompt that included, among other requests, “soulful vocal samples” to get the voice they ultimately used on the song.

“It’s been such an honor to see the love and support for ‘I Run’ these past few weeks,” HAVEN. said in a statement to Billboard. “What started as something fun and experimental between two producers and music-lovers ended up taking the internet by storm. I’m aware that AI has become part of that storm. It shouldn’t be any secret that I used AI-assisted vocal processing to transform solely my voice for ‘I Run.’ As a songwriter and producer I enjoy using new tools, techniques and staying on the cutting edge of what’s happening. To set the record straight, the artists behind HAVEN. are real and human, and all we want to do is make great music for other humans.”

Suno does not allow users to request specific artist or song names. But the company is currently in the midst of a blockbuster lawsuit with the three major music companies — Sony, Universal and Warner — over allegations of widespread copyright infringement of the majors’ sound recordings during the AI training process. Given Smith is signed to The Orchard, a Sony Music-owned distributor, it is possible her sound recordings were used in Suno’s training. According to the lawsuit and to AI music expert Ed Newton-Rex in an article for Music Business Worldwide, users can find savvy or accidental ways to prompt Suno into providing results that seem to contain recognizable pieces of intellectual property from artists like ABBA, James Brown, Michael Buble and more.

The takedowns list a variety of reasons for the request for removal, according to emails obtained by Billboard, including one from Spotify that says, “We have received a complaint that your content infringes the sound recording rights of a third party. While this claim is under investigation, the content has been removed.” Another from Spotify says the content “violates exclusive rights.” A third reads, “Spotify may remove content that misrepresents a track as originating from or featuring an artist or that uses an artist’s name in a misleading way.” One from TikTok also lists the reason why the track is muted as “it contains unauthorized copyrighted music.”

“Sound recording copyrights are not going to protect her voice if the voice sounded like her. There would have to be a sample of her sound recordings,” says Theresa Weisenberger, lawyer and co-lead at BakerHostetler’s AI practice, adding that voices are only protected by publicity rights — the legal right that varies state-to-state in the U.S. which protects one’s name, image and likeness from exploitation.

Historically, these rights have been mostly limited to commercial contexts, like misleading endorsements. The singer Bette Midler once famously sued the Ford Motor Co. over ads featuring a Midler impersonator who was hired by the company. Amid the boom in AI and deepfakes, however, lawmakers in Tennessee passed a new law, called the ELVIS Act, to dramatically expand the right to stop voice cloning in any context. And federally, lawmakers are currently considering a similar law, the NO FAKES Act, that would do the same thing nationally.

“I think this ought to be a wake up call for people to look at the status of the NO FAKES Act and to deal with how long it will take to get that moving and into a national uniform law,” adds Kenneth Anderson, an attorney at Rimon Law who recently advised his client, Ben Folds, though a deepfake situation. “We have a problem that is rapidly overtaking the music industry. It’s rampant and it’s increasing.”

To fight the takedowns, HAVEN.’s labels started reuploading the song over and over, leading to a seemingly endless game of whack-a-mole for both sides. The impact on “I Run” became even more pronounced when the song did not appear on The Official Charts in the U.K. or the Billboard charts.

“Once that counter notice is filed and then a lawsuit is not filed, a platform is free to put the song back up if they want to,” explains Weisenberger. “But the fact that platforms aren’t doing that might speak to the PR issue this song causes.”

For Broke, an indie record label founded in 2023, “I Run” was gearing up to be their (and HAVEN.’s) biggest hit yet, and its founders tell Billboard they feel the song is being discriminated against by bigger industry players. “HAVEN., an independent producer-songwriter who created a global breakout hit on his own, is the one being fully de-platformed through a sophisticated campaign by a major label,” the label said in a statement to Billboard. “It is difficult to imagine this recording, if released by a major label, being treated in the same way as HAVEN.”

The song has become a lightning rod for conversations around generative AI use in the creation of popular music. To date, some music streaming services still do not have AI-specific policies in place, and those that do, like Deezer and SoundCloud, tend to only penalize fully AI-generated works, not something like “I Run,” which contains significant human input. As Billboard reported in 2023, however, an increasing number of platforms have broadened the ability of rightholders to issue takedowns when publicity rights — the right to one’s name image likeness and voice — are violated, due to the rise of AI-generated deepfakes. This is done on a voluntary basis and is not required by law.

Spotify added to these publicity rights protections just last month when it announced that it was strengthening its policies against negative uses of AI. This included increased protections around impersonation, and according to a source close to the situation, the platform’s impersonation rules did come into play with the takedowns for HAVEN.’s track specifically. The source adds that Spotify tends to side with the party that has been deepfaked. (Spotify declined to comment.)

Now, HAVEN. is gearing up to release a re-recording of the song, featuring the vocals of a singer named Kaitlin Aragon. She was discovered by the team after posting a TikTok video, covering “I Run” which sounds fairly similar to the original. The hope is, for HAVEN.’s team, that they can recapture the same buzz as they achieved with the last version of the song and restart HAVEN.’s career — but this time, with human vocals.