March 6, 2025 • 48 mins
AC/DC told us it's a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll. Sage advice. But that was before the age of AI. Now it's a short way to the top if you want to create hundreds of thousands of fake songs to make millions from streaming services. Mike Smith did just that, courtesy of Artificial Intelligence. Gaming the system like that is all well and good, but can AI create a masterpiece like AC/DC's "Big Balls"? Doubtful.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
There, listen, I want you to think very carefully about this.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Okay, do I need to like focus?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Oh god, it is easy. I got this one Elizabeth
two pays. No, they're not ridiculous. That's not the part.
It wasn't done two pays with cocaine underneath them.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Okay, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
A man, a Columbian man, got busted trying to leave
Columbia with what under his hat cokayene. This man had
two hundred and twenty grams in little packages shoved up
underneath his two pay glued down to his head, and
somehow people spotted this two is.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
A lot because one hundred and twenty grams is one
cup of flowers purpose.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
They have to be wrong because I'm going off with
British tabloids from.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Two cups of whole all purpose.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
He has a bunch of them. Although that's what I'm saying.
It's like little circles around the size of a quarter,
but kind of fluffy with like so like I think
that you could have the volume.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
But it made that it would lift off his head.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
That was also how he got caught. It was like
there was a woman who got caught in Newark, which
she had the same thing. She had like a beehive,
and she filled it with cocaine. I think I told
you about her. I always love looking at people like
how they get caught with cocaine in airports. It's one
of my hobbies, it is. Anyway, So this guy gets
caught with his twopey and they like, there's footage of them,
like peeling back is like hair wig is like his
hair hat if you will, and then you're cutting it out.
(01:25):
But they only claim that it's worth ten thousand dollars. Well,
how is that possible? Two hundred and twenty grams only
worth ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I don't know. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
That's what's ridiculous, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
How they value drugs on the Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
What Elizabeth Robot music? Oh hell yeah, this is ridiculous
(02:07):
Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and undred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I know you heard that.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's right, you heard it. You and I know a
lot of musicians.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Actually, yeah, surprisingly.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Surprisingly back in the day, these musicians they sold these
things called albums, but.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
They still saw those. They just don't they actually anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
CDs, CD ROM CDs. But like, the album sales was
a revenue source, like a physical album sale, like in
addition to touring.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Physical act it's really important.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And tour is where the real money is. You're not yet, yeah,
But then the Internet came along and then Metallica, suit
Naps and whatever, and then no one could deny that
physical music sales were on the way out.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
That they found a way to make it legal.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's true. And the streaming was in and streaming, so
with Napster and LimeWire in them, you were downloading files
that you could then burn to a CD.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I mean we've all done it.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I still.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
But pretty soon music, as you said, was totally portable.
We had the iPod and people had the opportunity to
access all sorts of music about having to download.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
A whole album, and they started buying.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah, so that's what we you know, we get what
we have today, which is the way he wants, well,
he gets it. That's a little cool hand Luke for you.
So some artists they do really, really well with streaming
royalties for Spotify. Some of the biggest streamers for the
past few years are Taylor Swift, of Course, The Weakened,
(03:53):
Yes Bad Bunny, Say Drake, Yes Billy Eilish, Ellish, Philly,
Lady Gaga, Bruno, Mars, and ets. They dominate the charts
on those You know.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Who dominates on performances other than Taylor Swift, Eminem internationally
is one of the top selling artists. I was looking
for something else. I was like, he's still.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So there are some on the list that I've never
heard of, which is it's not surprising. Like I once
had some students.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Tell me each passing day, it's more likely more and
more likely.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
What years ago, I had students tell me about this
artist that they like Walk a Flock of Flame, and
I was positive they were Oh. I was like, we
watched them up at show.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
But their acts on Spotify on the Spotify list like Marshmallow,
Teddy Swims, and Daddy Yankee. That sounds like the PBS
Kids Saturday Morning lineup to I have to a Mellow
Teddy Swims, Daddy Yanky right that replaced Arthur Okay, do
you know who has more follows than Taylor Swift, who
(05:05):
is in the number two spot in that category? How
did you know Arjit Singh, an Indian singer in contemporary
Hindi film most right, And then of course there's a
triple sing Yes, I know. Then of course there's Mike Smith.
Mike Smith, not Mike Jones, Mike Jones and not Sam Smith,
(05:28):
not Sam Smith. The Smith is there?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Mike Smith, like the Replacements or something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Mike Smith, Mike and the Mechanics.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Oh yeah, Mike Smith.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Mike Smith is huge Smith. Let me read you, Let
me read you some of his Spotify bio.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Just help you out here, Please inform me, educate me.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Mike plays twelve instruments and used this ability to perform
and produce all of his upcoming album Pieces of My Soul.
Mike is Cuban American. His mother was born in Havana, Cuba.
The father of six has a great love story with
his wife, Erica Smith. Mike and Erica almost married in college,
(06:06):
broke up, and on the tenth anniversary of their breakup,
they reconnected and have been together ever since. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I got to laugh at trying to explain to somebody. No,
I'm really Cuban, all right, Mike Smith, Okay, Mike Smith.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
He says. He says that he's related to Fidel Castro,
Justin Trudeau's cousin. So Bustle magazine said that Smith quote
first made his fortune in the nineteen nineties when he
was only twenty three years old, with an IT business.
According to his website, he then built, bought, and sold
(06:41):
three regional chains of medical practices. Oh, I mean that
is like a star is born.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Totally. It's the artist path.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
It completely is.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
This is according canuisitions on your way.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
To Can I read to you from Wikipedia?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Please?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Which is like my favorite thing to hear. Mike's is
a Cuban American recording artist, record and television producer. He's
a number one Billboard charting artist. He is best known
for being one of the stars and main judge on
b ET's original programming series One Shot. He's also well
known for numerous hit singles, including the top five Billboard
(07:17):
hit Beautiful Day and Billboard top forty hits hard Working
Man and You're My Kind of Beautiful. Smith has worked
with many artists including DJ khaled T, I, Juicy J,
Royce five nine, Remy ma and Gilby Clark of Guns N' Roses.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Oh wow, that's quite an interesting list. Like he also
apparently has Wikipedia editing privileges.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That's what I was gonna say, Like, okay, so that
was written by him. Let's break this down though. Okay,
he's like another Mister World ride here. Sure he's got
his fingers and everything.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Do you know if you look up Pitbull, he outranks
the dog you go in and like, yeah, he's very form.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I'm happy I saw I am Mister World activated by
the inclusion of Gilby Clark at the end of that
list of artists. Oh, it's like a punchline, exactly, beautiful scorpions.
The video for hard Working Man is up on Mike
Smith's YouTube page. It's typical American idol style fare right.
(08:16):
It's like country pop and he walks around a cowboy
hat and like a tight T shirt and he's got
a loaded six string on his back playing for keeps
Aaron and he might not get The video has.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
More than a million views.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I don't care, I don't Is he ringing a bell?
Have you ever heard of him?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
No?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, I well no, let's talk about b Et one Shot.
I can't believe you didn't remember him from that. I'm
sure you. B Et one Shot ran from twenty sixteen
to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Oh that's that was dragging my blackout.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It was like American Idol for hip Hop, hosted by
Sway Callowaymah yeah, at least that's what the IMDb description says.
Sway is only a producer in the credits. No, he
was on it. Mike Smith is listed as the main judge.
I think he has IMDb editing.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
He's got everywhere. He's an admin of every website you've
ever been.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
So he's on that.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I'm telling you the guy there it is.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
He's alongside t I, Twista, dj K and everywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Another one.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Video Vixen Emmy Elliott.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I've always wanted to be called a video to.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
As like her title is video Vixen.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, I want that title to Elizabeth want to be
video here by.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
W video Vixen. And you can put it on a business.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Card really suitable for framing you go ahead.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
So Smith, he's introduced on the show as quote, music
producer and owner of S m H Records. Okay, yeah,
so the fellow judges of his King Crooked k x
NG Crooked and King Tech.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
We got to kings.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
They're introduced as quote considered one of the West Coast
greatest m seas of all time.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
And one King Bible story.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
And the man who helped spark the careers of Eminem
and jay Z.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I find that hard to believe.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Well, King Tech is this bar area dute. He got
a morning show at Cameol with sway. Oh hell, he
took it to New York, So that's how he.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Gets So he played them early.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Right, okay, exactly No, I was the.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
First person to play jay Z. I was the first
person to play.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
But he makes it like I made them who they are.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, like he was in the studio but a little louder.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
He was like, how about we do it this way?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Do it on the ones and twos.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Spoiler alerte for you. The winner of one Shot was
a dude named three, which is like, if you want
to have a career, make it really googleable three three,
so unless.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Your pit bull and then just.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Dominate take that dog. In his finale performance, he's dressed
like Jesus in a middle school passion play. Like he's
draped in a flat sheet, has a crown of thorns
that looks like it came from the Christmas garlic section
at Michael's. And he's wearing a pair of white running shoes.
Oh yeah, I cannot stress to you how horrible his
(11:20):
performance is. I feel like there's nothing that I can
say that will adequately adequately.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Convey how bad it is.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
You have to have a b ET plus subscription to
mine expired the actual episode. But I found a YouTube
video titled b ET one Shot Winter three, okay, and
in it this is like one of the first time
I always say things on here. I'm like, I don't
know what it is, and then people email or message
(11:50):
us and be like, you know, it's there's a YouTube
video of it. I'm like, what's that? I actually went
on the YouTube. So anyway, this b ET one shot
Winter three video someone filmed their TV with their classes poorly,
like it's like, it's such it's so good. Three, as
(12:12):
part of his prize, got a record deal with Mike
Smith's s m H Records. I found Three's Instagram and
it looks like he has all sorts of hustles, like
inspirational stuff. He sells merch for some thing that he got.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Like hooked up as Sesame Street. You know, they used
to be like brought to you by the letter the
number H.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
He's got it better. He's got it better. He also
has a link on there to his only fans.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Oh god, I had never visiteds like Sands Clothing on.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
The never visited that website. And I can say that
I truly regret. I truly regret clicking the link in
the bio.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
What did you see, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
I not terrible things.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Can't you forget them?
Speaker 5 (13:04):
It's so terrible, dude, seriously about them. I had to
I had to wash my computer. I put my computer
in the dishwasher, threw the laptop in there, and I said,
get behind me, satan.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Uh. So, I think it's safe to say that Mike
Smith did not make three a Star, you know, unless
he's is three.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
In the process of making three Star on his own.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
No, I don't think.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
So.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
What's the deal with this record label?
Speaker 6 (13:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I mean I'm just always asking myself. The website is
smhworldwide dot net. Oh wow, and that is killing me
dead in my tracks. And according to Pitchbook, the label
was founded in twenty thirteen. It's based in Cornelius, North Carolina.
It's like twenty miles north of downtown Charlotte, Okay, And
you know what, that's also where the wrapper three happens
(13:53):
to be from.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Oh shocking, interesting cousin.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
So Cornelius is a Charlotte suburb at this point, and
Charlotte like just continues to grow and grow. So anyway,
Smah records. It was originally called Smith and Hay Productions.
We'll find out about Hey later. The label claims to
have raised thirty million dollars in venture capital funds upon
its inception. They did not spend any of that money
(14:20):
on their.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Website, I'm guessing not.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
The list of their artists is a doozy Mike Smith.
The top of Mike Smith, I mean the household flags
sway he's an artist apparently. And then William Lee Golden
of the Oakridge Boys.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Not William Lee Golden of the Okridge Boy Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I know William Golding, but no William Lee Golden. David Frizzell,
brother of Lefty Frizzell. What, Yeah, his big hits were
You're the reason God made Oklahoma And I'm going to
hire a whino to decorate our home, Dear God, I
I wish I were making that up. Then there's Goldie Locks.
(15:03):
Her bio reads. Moonshadow is an American singer and professional
wrestler known as Goldilocks or Goldie Locks. She is perhaps
best known for her appearances with Total NonStop Action Wrestling
as an interviewer and manager. Oh lord, then we got
Jesse Kramer up in there. His bio begins, Jesse Kramer's
story is as authentic as it is unpredictable, and then
(15:27):
it concludes with the quote, I think the best way
to really understand the world is through music. I would
like people to feel and vibe with me and let
them know that there's still authentic, raw and genuine music
out there. Simply put, I want my music to really
touch people. And I'm ready to do whatever it takes
and go anywhere I must to make this happen.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
See like, that could be an earnest sentiment I would
agree with, And that could be the most annoying person.
I never wanted to be stuck in an elevator world.
I don't know. It's like he's been on a couple
of say the name is Jesse Wesll.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
His name was Jesse Kramer, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
He's been on a couple of reality TV music competition shows.
And that's what that quote kind of sounds like. It
does that we got Dave Gibson, Dude, Dave Gibson, the
songwriter who has some sort of connection to the Oakridge Boys.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Oh okay, to go on.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And then we have Music of the Sea, Music of
the Seed that's a hybrid publishing and licensing company, and
it looks like they're there. They know they're like the
middleman between labels or artists and the entities that want
to use their song like movie soundtracks.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Oh yeah, they do like licensing. Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So SMH Records claims to have twenty top ten Billboard
charting albums and if you want to know which ones,
you'll have to guess because they're not listed anyway. This
is what the website says. SMH Records is one of
the biggest indie labels in the world, with twenty top
ten Billboard charting albums, numerous top forty singles, and over
(16:54):
one point five billion streams for our artists. SMH Records
is by far the most effect of label for independent
artists out there. And then they go on to talk
about their diverse catalog listing all these random names. H
SMH Records has had albums chart in the top ten
on Billboard for numerous genres, including rock, Country, Americana, Jazz, Christian,
(17:16):
and hip hop.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
They're just a one stop shop.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Mike Smith dot net. I went there. He says he
got three top ten singles, over one billion streams, five
number one Billboard charting albums. Check out the McDonald's over there,
and yet neither of us has ever heard of him.
He's secretly popular.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I'm still doubting at all, and as you.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Can see, I'm not paying him much reverence. He comes
across as how do you say.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
A con artist?
Speaker 7 (17:45):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Fake?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah? Well, good buddy. I think he is allegedly allegedly.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Wait what is he like?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I want to tell you about the alleged crimes of
Mike Smith because he's been indicted, but he hasn't been convicted.
He still deserves his stay in court.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Fair enough.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
The accusations are probably not what you'd expect in terms
of scammy music industry types. Okay, it's a modern day version,
a new era, So.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
He's not doing crimes against people. He's not like going
and doing the things that we don't like of like
assaulting and all that.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And he's not.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Getting people up with his henchmen or hanging people out
of windows of.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
No, let's take a break. When we come back, we're
going to dive deeper into his catalog.
Speaker 7 (18:23):
Okay, Mike Smith, Yes, how you do it?
Speaker 3 (18:47):
My new favorite musicians.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
As I said, according to his website, three top ten singles.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
You know I love success.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, over a billion streams.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
That's what I look for in a musician. I'm like, how
many streams? I don't care what the music sounds like. Now,
how many streams of other people listen to this?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Does he have five number one Billboard charting albums? Not exactly?
Oh what do the kids say? The math ain't math?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
And yes they do say that. I heard they do.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
So.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
He mentions hits on various Billboard charts, Jazz, hot Christian Songs,
top album sells. None of those are available to play
on any streaming serve. It has happened to be no
one is referred to the hoodlum ball w h O
O D l U M.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Like the players ball but ball.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Oh yeah yeah, And it's supposed to be a song
that was apparently the number one hundred and fifty six
song on the Billboard two hundred and twenty eighteen, but
it can't be played on Spotify and it come it
comes up as an album not a track on band
Camp under the name Jonathan Hay with Mike Smith and
(19:49):
DJ who Kid. Yeah. So there's a track on it
called Jazzmine j A Z Z M I N E.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Features really into the spelling, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Featuring riff Raff.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
That guy.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
If you want, you can go bury yourself in a
hole on Daytona Beach and hope it collapses on you.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Total I did.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
We hang out and smoke cigars and complain about how
things aren't plastic.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Jonathan Hay is a music publicist and he looks like
Jelly Roll without the high school detention desk scribbled on
his face.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Good call.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
His website Jonathanhay Celebrity dot com. It's pretty amazing. The
bios top notch. You have to indulge me so while
I read this is our company was established by award
winning publicist Jonathan Hay, who's widely recognized as a quote
media guru and one of the greatest publicists of all time.
(20:49):
Jonathan Hay's professional career started with Days of the New,
the multi platinum post grunge band who had four notable
hit singles. They are most known for Touch, Peel and
Stan that spent seventeen weeks at number one, breaking modern
rock record. The song was recently named greatest of all
(21:10):
time mainstream rock song by Billboard magazine. No, it wasn't.
Days of the New helped launch the career of bandmate
Nicole Chezingerzinger whatever the Pussycat Dolls, who have sold over
fifty five million records in their own right, they actually
have Imagine sure in March of two thousand and five,
(21:31):
You're gonna love this. This is why I'm quoting this.
Hay wrote Rihanna's first press release, which premiered on MTV
News for her debut single, Pawn Day Replay that was
co produced by Nobles. Shortly after, Hay launched the controversial
publicity stunt that helped Rihanna gain worldwide attention, which was
(21:54):
ten years after the legendary stunt, Hay was encouraged to
publicly apologize to Beyonce for the unauthorized biography Becoming Beyonce
by best selling author Jay Randy Taborelli. Hay was featured
in the book for his publicity tactics of spreading rumors
about a love triangle between jay Z Beyonce and.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Rihanna Oh.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
All these actions were done without malice to help boost
the debut single and launch Rihanna's career. Hey confessed that
he started those rumors during a personally difficult time. Quote
the pr stunt that I did was out of desperation
to help break ponder replay. Hay said it was reckless
and I didn't think it was gonna work. I was
(22:40):
just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it
would stick.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I relate. That's when I claimed that Guy Fieri was
afraid of playing me in trivial pursuit. Yeah, my guy
Fieri resists this. That's how I got famed.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
You get the picture about this guy, dude.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
So this guy is He's the reason why I don't
have a personal website. People like him I just don't
want anything to do with. I'm so real, I don't
even have a website.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Researcher Marissa has a theory that Hey is an unnamed
co conspirator in what the Music Publicist aka CC two
or the Music promoter CC four in Mike Smith's indictment.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Which we'll get to s Yeah, we're gonna get there.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So Mike Smith, he's on Spotify. His top song on
Spotify is a karaoke version of Tupacs I Ain't.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Mad at You Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And like I said, that song Hardworking Man of his
has more than one million streams on YouTube, but it
doesn't have any listed on Spotify. He also seems to
be like he's like a four hire producer and session
musician in Cornelius, North Carolina, which is a hotbed of
the music industry. I know when I hear there's a
(23:55):
hot new musical artist on the scene, I'm like, they've
got to be out of Cornelius.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Tell It's like, is it Muscles Show? Is it Cornelias One?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's got to be one or the other. I mentioned
streaming way back in the day. Let's talk about that.
So musicians and songwriters they make money on streaming services
via royalty pennies on the dollar, right, oh, less than pennies.
None of the services Spotify, Apple, YouTube, et cetera. None
of them want to say exactly what they pay, but
the general range is from fractions of a penny per
(24:23):
play to possibly a penny per stream. So Business Insider
says that Spotify pays artists and rights holders about point
zero zero three dollars. So you know of a cent
or point zero zero five penny per stream.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
How long have we been saying pay the piper. I mean,
we know you got to pay the musicians. We want
the musicians.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Well. For most and here's the weird thing. For most platforms,
Spotify and Apple specifically, the money is paid proportionately. There's
something that's called stream share.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
This is an algorithm.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Well, it's a proportional number based on all total monthly.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
Streams per country.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
So DK Music Business Academy explains it as such. Quote.
In simple terms, this means that if you, an artist
were to receive one in every ten thousand streams in
the United Kingdom, you'd receive one pound out of every
ten thousand pounds that Spotify pays to artists out of
their particular royalty pool for the UK. Because of the
(25:23):
way stream share is calculated, the amount of monthly royalties
you'd get for streams on your tracks is highly dependent
on whereabouts your music is streamed and Spotify's own revenue
for that market. So there's an alleged crime in here
aside from this, what it all?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Of this?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
What's the crime all? Quote from the US Department of
Justice and their indictment. Please, from approximately twenty seventeen and
up to and including twenty twenty four, Michael Smith, a defendant,
orchestrated a scheme to steal millions of dollars of musical
royalties by fraudulently inflating music streams on digital streaming platforms
(26:04):
such as Amazon Music, outter Music, Spotify, YouTube Music. Who, Elizabeth,
what does this mean?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Elizabeth Great questions Aaron so First.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Smith, he made a bunch of fake streaming accounts using
email addresses that he purchased online. And when I say
a bunch, I'm talking thousands.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I was wondering, I'm like, this isn't seven ten thousand.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
He even outsourced the creation and maintenance of these streaming
accounts to paid co conspirators, And it's a lot for
just one man to man.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
I was figuring he had like whatever those task grabit
type people, and in another country it could be Yeah,
I don't know, I don't do these types of things.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I don't know. I'm innocent.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
So then he created.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Software to stream his own music on loops from all
these different computers, so it made it look like there
were individual listeners logging in from different places to hear
the sweet tunes of now Remember how the fellas at
Studio fifty four had to call him in their ledger
marked skim Well. In twenty seventeen, Mike Smith emailed himself
(27:08):
a financial breakdown that calculated the kind of money he
could make with this. He figured he could stream his
songs six hundred and sixty one, four hundred and forty
times each day. WHOA so six hundred and sixty thousand
times a day that he figured that's going to let
him take in daily royalty payments of like thirty three
(27:32):
hundred dollars as much as one point two million in
a year.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
So the streaming services they're totally onto this though, like
they're expecting this. They know that people are greedy and
looking to crime. Smith one step ahead. Like de Bone
in Fast Times, he cast a wide net, so he
spread his activity across a shoop ton of fake songs
(27:59):
rather than just like they're looking for like, oh, this
one song out of nowhere has a no this way,
the tunes of his wouldn't draw attention because individual songs
wouldn't get too many hits. That's where people are making
their mistake. Zarin, close your eyes. Oh, I want you
to picture you are a pizza delivery driver. It's twenty
(28:21):
seventeen and the door dashes of the world are just
starting to creep into your turf. Not really out here
in Cornelius, North Carolina, but in bigger cities for sure.
You've got a delivery to a subdivision. You don't recognize
the address, but there you are, cruise along Old Statesville
Road with a steaming pie in your back seat. That's
not a euphanism. You're a pizza delivery driver.
Speaker 7 (28:41):
Dang.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
It's a typical North Carolina summer day. Hot, muggy, oppressively so,
the air is thick with moisture and the buzz of cicadas.
You see the address and screech to a halt. You
reach behind you and grab the pizza, and then get
out and make your way to the front door. The
heat and humidity hit you like a heavy blanket. You
ring the bell and wait. A middle aged man opens
(29:05):
a door and.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Feats you with a smile.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Come on, in, He offers, no, you just try and
hand him with the pizza and tell him the total.
I gotta go get my wallet, and I don't want
to leave the front door open, and I don't want
to make you stand outside in the heat. Come on in,
he tells you, against your better judgment. You do. The
house is cool and dark, but not creepily, so follow me.
The guy tells you. You trail after him down a
hall and into what looks like a music studio. There's
(29:29):
a faint melody playing from the speakers, some sort of
acoustic guitar stuff. Another guy sits at a production deck,
fiddling with some knobs. I don't see how you're gonna
be able to make a hundred songs this week, Mike,
the man at the deck says, Mike tells you to
set the pizza on the table. When you oblige, the
man at the deck spins around his chair and is
startled to see you. You raise a feeble wave at
(29:50):
him and keep your eye on Mike, who's digging through
a pile of stuff on the table.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Until he triumphantly produces a wallet.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Aha, he says. Then he tells the other man, I've
tried farming it out. I bought some songs from a
catalog and I got some studio guys in. It's just
not cost effective and it takes so much time. Zarin,
you're a bit of an amateur futurist. You saw something
recently on Reddit about music production and AI. You mentioned
to Mike as he digs through his wallet. Ay, I
(30:18):
don't mean interfere or eavesdrop, but if you need to
make a bunch of songs in a short amount of time,
have you thought about using AI? Artificial intelligence AI? Says Mike.
The guy at the soundboard shuts off the music in
the background. You go on to explain to the pair
how it works and what they need to do. Mike's
face lights up. He hands you one hundred dollars bill.
(30:39):
Keep the change, kid. Now you are a sixty year
old woman. But whatever, A tip's a tip, all right. So, however,
he came to the realization. Sure, outside of that fictionalization,
Smith found that using AI would be a way to
make faster and cheaper music than what he had been
trying so far.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
This is what I'm hold by Sam Altman.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
He couldn't just write his own songs fast enough. I mean,
hard working man was lightning in a bottle. How can
you force such.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
An Yeah, I mean not everyone has that in them.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Well, then it's like he bought a catalog belonging to
a music publicist, but that didn't work out for him,
And after that he tried selling his bot farming services
to other musicians who would pay him to play their
music or like hand over a chunk of their royalties
when he did, and he didn't get any takers for that.
So bring on the robots. Let's pause for our robot
(31:32):
advertising overlords. When we get back, AI is about to
ruin everything, just like it had been foretold. Mike Smith.
(32:01):
Mike Smith, Mike Smith, He's about to bust a serious scam, allegedly,
I'm rooting for allegedly.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
You'd stick it to the streamers. I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
He teamed up with the CEO of an AI music
company and a music promoter, and these two happened to
avoid any trouble with the.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Law on this.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Really yeah Smith, But Smith, Okay, So he creates an
absolutely obscenely large catalog of AI songs, fake songs, you'll like, thousands,
thousands of songs. There's no meaning, no heart no artistry,
bogus computer slacking, three long yeah, and so he's yeah thousands.
(32:39):
He's uploaded the streaming platforms every week. So he and
his partners made sure to put their misdeeds in writing.
One of the executives wrote to him in an email
in twenty nineteen that said, in part, quote keep in
mind what we're doing musically here. This is not music.
It's quote instant music. And then like the winking emoji,
(33:01):
this is a crime.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
According to the Department of Justice, the AI music exec
quote ultimately provided Smith with hundreds of thousands of AI
songs for which he could manipulate the streams. I shall
read to you from the indictment Zara oh Yes. Smith
then created randomly generated song and artist names for audio
files so that they would appear to have been created
(33:25):
by real artists rather than artificial intelligence. For example, an
alphabetically consecutive selection of twenty five of the names of
the AI song Smith used is as follows. Zygo facia, zygophyllasia, zygophyllum,
zygo septaria, zygoceptaris, zygopteron, zykeeptaurus, zygospork, zygotetiges, zygos, zygotic, zygotic, laney,
(33:53):
zygotic washstands, zyme, bedoing, zymes, zimite, zymophyte, zime, cimogenic, zymologies. I'moplastics,
i'm apears, imotechnicals, smotechnic, zimozymss. I love that the departments, like,
get a load of this crap. Here's twenty five just
the z songs. Those are just song names.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And so he just got got around like zygo and
was like, I can work with this.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I think he had every letter of the alphabet just
like planned out. Anyway. The quote continues similarly in an
alphabetical consecutive selection of twenty five of the names of
quote artists in the AI song Smith used is as follows. Calliope, bloom, calliope, ratum, callous, callous, humane, callous,
(34:39):
post callousness, calm, baseball, calm connected, calm force, calm identity,
calm innovation, calm knuckles, calm market, calm the super, calm, weary,
calm scorching, calorie event, calorie events, calorie screams, Calvin Man, calvinistic, dust,
(35:00):
calypso Zord, Cambelist, Dyson, Camelsi, Minerva, cambis cagelings and camel edible.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Calliope balloom sounds like a name you come up here
at a bar that you didn't want to tell someone
your real name completely.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Now, I'm a huge fan of the songs I'm be doing, but.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Call them the super how you're not going to since I.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Cannot play any of these for you on here because
they no longer exist. I asked the ridiculous crime director
of Tech Services, who has a PhD in the Miami
big bass sound. Oh that's right, yeah, oh yeah, Bogo
Donner bar like whose parents would do that to their kid?
But I asked him to approximate a tune for us
(35:45):
and he was offended.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, a human to do ai music.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
And then he decided to express his offense through song.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Would you like that's a true artistic statement.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Would you like to hear this?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
You know it? Smash that play button. If you're hearing this,
it's too late. The computers have taken over and they're
writing freaky songs and song songs. I want to write
a million hand songs and songs and song songs.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
So I want to write a million hand song and
saying over and.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
The bringing over a saying over taking. I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I think it really captures the essence of what's going on.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah, it's like a mystery science theater three thousand like
if it if they could put out like an album
of hits, I would expect that song to be on.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
It done, done it again.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Du bongo always he doesn't miss Now that's a big drummo.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Never never misses. I did ask chat GPT to write
me some lyrics for a song called zime Bedoing by
Calm the super It.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Would be a fun name to name a kid, Chad GPT.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Chad, She said, Chad name, and then have his middle
initials be GPT.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Yeah, but spelled out like g e e.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Okay, okay elon. All right, So we want to hear
the lyrics that chat that Chad GPT wrote for zime
Be doing verse one, in the quiet of the storm,
I found the light, a shimmer in the dark where
day meets night. Zime Be doing whispers on the breeze,
like a quiet song carried through the trees. And then
(37:44):
the pre chorus, I felt it in the pulse deep inside,
a rhythm from the earth, No need to hide, zime
Be doing touches something true it's a feeling I can't shake,
but it's new. And then the chorus, zime be doing.
It's in my vein a gentle wave of love, like
summer rain. Every drop is a memory, soft and pure.
(38:06):
Zime be doing. We endure, We.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Endure, ride like a horse.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, AI thinks the artist is garbage. I guess this
is like something that someone would play on an autoharp
at an open mic night at a coffee shop in
nineteen ninety five. After listening to forty eight hours of
nothing but Enya and Tool.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
And Live altogether.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yeah, I can see that zime be dooing umberdure.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Finding a rhyme for zime but doing is not easy.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
I love it so much. By June twenty nineteen, Smith
was earning more than one hundred thousand dollars a month
a month a month, and he had to peel some
of that offer as co conspirators. According to the indictment.
I'm sure the BBC wrote quote mister Smith, prosecutors said
flatly lied to music distribution companies. In October twenty eighteen,
(38:56):
one company informed mister Smith that it had received quote
reports of streaming abuse and that it planned to remove
his songs from all stores and then, according to Variety, quote,
we need to get a ton of songs fast to
make this work around the anti fraud policies these guys
are all using. Now, that's what he wrote in an
(39:16):
email to his co conspiracy.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
You need to get around the anti fraud because what
we're doing I have to fraud harder. Brought more.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
The Mechanical Licensing Collective reached out to him, well more
than reached out.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
They confronted him.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
I was wondering, Yeah, they're the ones who distribute the royalty.
So this was in twenty twenty three. They figured there
was absolutely no way he could be generating that much
authentic music. He had to be using AI. And that
didn't even touch on the whole streaming.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Bots part of it.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Oh yeah, so Smith, he denies any problem with what
he's up to. Quote, this is what a representative. We
have clearly demonstrated that Mike Smith's works are not AI generated,
but rather they are human authored.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Really yeah, because he wrote in the title, well.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Calm the super is everyone's favorite artist. I don't know.
In February twenty twenty four, he wrote an email.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Calorie event though, I mean I saw the red Rock.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Oh in original lollapalo so good.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Body count, calorie event and I think it was d side.
It was an amazing show. Calm Knuckles was there and
punched the clown.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
So Smith wrote an email another email in twenty twenty
four quote talking about his existing music has generated at
this point over four billion streams and twelve million dollars
in royalties since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Four billion. Take that j long, we know.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
How much a billion is.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
There's a lot, a lot of twelve million dollars.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
That's a lot of money. It's like Taylor Swift money.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Yeah, that's good money.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
September twenty you can find it.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
He gets arrested, so they charged him with wire fraud conspiracy, wirefraud,
time money laundering conspiracy. Oh yeah, he could get up
to sixty years in prison. He's not happy. He wrote
a strongly worded letter.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Oh good for him. So he's doing the praz defense
from Fuji.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, this is what he said. Quote. This is absolutely
wrong and crazy. There is absolutely no fraud going on whatsoever.
How can I appeal this? That doesn't sound like AI
And in fact I asked chat GPT to write me
a paragraph denying the charges. Yeah, this is what chat
(41:41):
GPT came about.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
God.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I categorically deny any involvement in wire fraud or money
laundering in connection with music created by AI. At no
point have I engaged in any illicit activities relating to
the production, distribution, or financial transactions involving AI generated music.
My actions have always been income clients with all relevant
laws and ethical guidelines. The creation and use of AI
(42:04):
and music is a legitimate and innovative field, and I
have been here strictly to all legal and professional standards
in my work. Any suggestion of illegal conduct regarding these
matters is entirely unfounded and untrue.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Wow, hey, I got a lot to say.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
I love that AI defends AI music totally.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
I got a question for you. You remember like the
I don't know if you went to Sunday School, but
you did CCD education with Catholics.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
I went to Catholics.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
At some point some kid will say, you know, can
God make a rock so big even God can't raise it?
Or say old George Carlin, bitch.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
But I want to know is does anybody ever asked
AI to write a letter saying I've never used AI
took pleasure. Yeah, I want them and then put that
in court. I want someone to go to court and
he use a letter that says written by Ai, that
says I never used AI, and I want to see
how AI writes letter.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
As Bongo wrote in his song it's too late.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, the computer.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Smith he pleaded not guilty. Of course, bail said at
five hundred thousand dollars. Trial coming up to be determined,
So we're gonna mark this one as unresolved. And again
remember he has only been indicted, not convicted, so everything's
alleged totally. We're just fun in over here. Shortly after
the indictment, though, Spotify chimed in. The company said that
(43:21):
its platform accounted for less than one percent of the
ten million dollars generated in the fraud case. Quote Spotify
invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect,
and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Is what they were flexing on the others.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Like in this case, it appears that our preventative measures
worked and limited the royalties Smith was able to generate
from Spotify to approximately sixty thousand dollars of the ten
million noted in the indictment, as Spotify typically accounts for
around fifty percent of stream share. This shows how effective
we are at limiting the impact of artificial streaming on
(44:03):
our platform.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Now you are more of a fan of petty than
I am. On a scale of like five side eyes.
How what would you rate that on pettiness?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Oh, they're basically like unlike some other platforms. Oh, I'd
give them four side eyes. Wow, they're like, you know,
unlike Amazon Music, we have security.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
The title you lazy, the grand is still.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
A good chunk of change, you know, for fake songs.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
I'll take it, Saren.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (44:30):
AI?
Speaker 2 (44:31):
AI I mean like AI.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Oh, I'm so I'm still so mad that I used
to be able to say the words to the letters
rather AI. And everybody knew I met Alan Iverson. I
knew I met Alan Iverson. And now when I say AI,
I mean like the one of the worst most destructive
forces on the planet. And everyone was like, man, I
wish he was talking about Alan Iverson.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
Good point.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
There you go, Elizabeth.
Speaker 6 (44:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
It's hard enough to make it as a musician, then
you got to wade through this garbage totally.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, and also the streamers. Just before that, you have
the streamers, then you got AI now on the back
end coming at you.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
I want I want like a major like electromagnetic event
of course, to wipe everything out. We got to go
back to like cassettes and singles.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
I want more emphasis on live music. So people are like,
and I mean like not live music, like when you
go to see a show. I mean like your uncle
starts playing the piano in the room and everyone comes
in and starts that. I see that stuff in like
old movies. You know, I watch a lot of old culture. Yeah,
my brothers exactly. It still exist in some of these
multi generational homes and homes of musicians, but I want
(45:39):
it used to be everybody. But also before we had
recorded music, almost every home they played music.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Oh yeah, they had a piano or something.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Somebody listen.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
The other thing is that when you're talking about live music,
it shows I back the Jack White.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Put in the back the best.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
It was amazing being in a show like that where
you don't see phones up, everyone's just watching this.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Thank you inting me to that.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
That was super cool, welcome, But like, I hate going
to a show I've never done it. Like, I just
see the person in front of me. They're filming the
whole thing.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Now they have iPads, like they hold up iPads. I
gotta start through.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
The bad Grandma at a high school graduation.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Yeah, I just mug them, just still like we got
both hands on the iPad. Have no hand on your wallet.
That's a good I'm kidding. I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Dave, could you perhaps favorite with the talk bag?
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Hell? Yeah, I like that call. Oh my god, I
love jet.
Speaker 6 (46:44):
Ahright, I'm Karen. I just got finished listening to the
ltimb Stevens Junior kidnapping episode, and you brought up the
town of Ramlap, Alabama, where the kidnappers are from, and
how ram Lap is Palmer felt backwards and wondered if
Palmer was already taken kind of yes. I grew up
in Palmerdale, Alabama. My mom grew up in one of
my b Alabama. They are very close to each other.
The ridiculous story I always heard growing up was that
(47:07):
there was one mister Palmer who needed to name two
towns after two different sounds.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
And this was a solution. That is I love that
look at me guy, like home, Thank you for that.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Appreciates you.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
That's us for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime dot com, the only website where the subscription
service we pay you.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Yeah it's true.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah. We're also on Blue Sky, Instagram, Friendster. You can
email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and then,
most importantly, leave a talkback on the iHeart app reach out.
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
(47:53):
produced and edited by Robot producer Dave Cousten, starring Annalise
Rutger as Judas. Research is by lead singer of Electric
Solstice Marissa Brown and backup drummer for Lunar Wavelength Alex French.
The theme song is by manager of Crimson Circuit Thomas Lee,
an ousted bass player from Velvet Echoes Travis Dutton. Post
(48:13):
wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and
makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are booking
agent for Echo and the Astral Wolves, Ben Bolan and
Neon Sky's superfan Noel Brown. Band names by Chat.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
ChiPT Calorie, Event Forever
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Crime, Say It One More Time, Ridiculous Crime is a
production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts My heart Radio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
There, listen, I want you to think very carefully about this.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Okay, do I need to like focus?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
You know it's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Oh god, it is easy. I got this one Elizabeth
two pays. No, they're not ridiculous. That's not the part.
It wasn't done two pays with cocaine underneath them.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Okay, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
A man, a Columbian man, got busted trying to leave
Columbia with what under his hat cokayene. This man had
two hundred and twenty grams in little packages shoved up
underneath his two pay glued down to his head, and
somehow people spotted this two is.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
A lot because one hundred and twenty grams is one
cup of flowers purpose.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
They have to be wrong because I'm going off with
British tabloids from.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Two cups of whole all purpose.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
He has a bunch of them. Although that's what I'm saying.
It's like little circles around the size of a quarter,
but kind of fluffy with like so like I think
that you could have the volume.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
But it made that it would lift off his head.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
That was also how he got caught. It was like
there was a woman who got caught in Newark, which
she had the same thing. She had like a beehive,
and she filled it with cocaine. I think I told
you about her. I always love looking at people like
how they get caught with cocaine in airports. It's one
of my hobbies, it is. Anyway, So this guy gets
caught with his twopey and they like, there's footage of them,
like peeling back is like hair wig is like his
hair hat if you will, and then you're cutting it out.
(01:25):
But they only claim that it's worth ten thousand dollars. Well,
how is that possible? Two hundred and twenty grams only
worth ten thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I don't know. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
That's what's ridiculous, Elizabeth.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
Speaker 3 (01:39):
How they value drugs on the Okay?
Speaker 2 (01:42):
What Elizabeth Robot music? Oh hell yeah, this is ridiculous
(02:07):
Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons.
It's always ninety nine percent murder free and undred percent ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
I know you heard that.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
It's right, you heard it. You and I know a
lot of musicians.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Actually, yeah, surprisingly.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Surprisingly back in the day, these musicians they sold these
things called albums, but.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
They still saw those. They just don't they actually anymore.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
CDs, CD ROM CDs. But like, the album sales was
a revenue source, like a physical album sale, like in
addition to touring.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Physical act it's really important.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
And tour is where the real money is. You're not yet, yeah,
But then the Internet came along and then Metallica, suit
Naps and whatever, and then no one could deny that
physical music sales were on the way out.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
That they found a way to make it legal.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
That's true. And the streaming was in and streaming, so
with Napster and LimeWire in them, you were downloading files
that you could then burn to a CD.
Speaker 3 (03:14):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
I mean we've all done it.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
I still.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
But pretty soon music, as you said, was totally portable.
We had the iPod and people had the opportunity to
access all sorts of music about having to download.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
A whole album, and they started buying.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yeah, so that's what we you know, we get what
we have today, which is the way he wants, well,
he gets it. That's a little cool hand Luke for you.
So some artists they do really, really well with streaming
royalties for Spotify. Some of the biggest streamers for the
past few years are Taylor Swift, of Course, The Weakened,
(03:53):
Yes Bad Bunny, Say Drake, Yes Billy Eilish, Ellish, Philly,
Lady Gaga, Bruno, Mars, and ets. They dominate the charts
on those You know.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Who dominates on performances other than Taylor Swift, Eminem internationally
is one of the top selling artists. I was looking
for something else. I was like, he's still.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So there are some on the list that I've never
heard of, which is it's not surprising. Like I once
had some students.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Tell me each passing day, it's more likely more and
more likely.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
What years ago, I had students tell me about this
artist that they like Walk a Flock of Flame, and
I was positive they were Oh. I was like, we
watched them up at show.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
But their acts on Spotify on the Spotify list like Marshmallow,
Teddy Swims, and Daddy Yankee. That sounds like the PBS
Kids Saturday Morning lineup to I have to a Mellow
Teddy Swims, Daddy Yanky right that replaced Arthur Okay, do
you know who has more follows than Taylor Swift, who
(05:05):
is in the number two spot in that category? How
did you know Arjit Singh, an Indian singer in contemporary
Hindi film most right, And then of course there's a
triple sing Yes, I know. Then of course there's Mike Smith.
Mike Smith, not Mike Jones, Mike Jones and not Sam Smith,
(05:28):
not Sam Smith. The Smith is there?
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Mike Smith, like the Replacements or something like that.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Mike Smith, Mike and the Mechanics.
Speaker 3 (05:35):
Oh yeah, Mike Smith.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Mike Smith is huge Smith. Let me read you, Let
me read you some of his Spotify bio.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Just help you out here, Please inform me, educate me.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Mike plays twelve instruments and used this ability to perform
and produce all of his upcoming album Pieces of My Soul.
Mike is Cuban American. His mother was born in Havana, Cuba.
The father of six has a great love story with
his wife, Erica Smith. Mike and Erica almost married in college,
(06:06):
broke up, and on the tenth anniversary of their breakup,
they reconnected and have been together ever since. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
I got to laugh at trying to explain to somebody. No,
I'm really Cuban, all right, Mike Smith, Okay, Mike Smith.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
He says. He says that he's related to Fidel Castro,
Justin Trudeau's cousin. So Bustle magazine said that Smith quote
first made his fortune in the nineteen nineties when he
was only twenty three years old, with an IT business.
According to his website, he then built, bought, and sold
(06:41):
three regional chains of medical practices. Oh, I mean that
is like a star is born.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Totally. It's the artist path.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
It completely is.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
This is according canuisitions on your way.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
To Can I read to you from Wikipedia?
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Please?
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Which is like my favorite thing to hear. Mike's is
a Cuban American recording artist, record and television producer. He's
a number one Billboard charting artist. He is best known
for being one of the stars and main judge on
b ET's original programming series One Shot. He's also well
known for numerous hit singles, including the top five Billboard
(07:17):
hit Beautiful Day and Billboard top forty hits hard Working
Man and You're My Kind of Beautiful. Smith has worked
with many artists including DJ khaled T, I, Juicy J,
Royce five nine, Remy ma and Gilby Clark of Guns N' Roses.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Oh wow, that's quite an interesting list. Like he also
apparently has Wikipedia editing privileges.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
That's what I was gonna say, Like, okay, so that
was written by him. Let's break this down though. Okay,
he's like another Mister World ride here. Sure he's got
his fingers and everything.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
Do you know if you look up Pitbull, he outranks
the dog you go in and like, yeah, he's very form.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
I'm happy I saw I am Mister World activated by
the inclusion of Gilby Clark at the end of that
list of artists. Oh, it's like a punchline, exactly, beautiful scorpions.
The video for hard Working Man is up on Mike
Smith's YouTube page. It's typical American idol style fare right.
(08:16):
It's like country pop and he walks around a cowboy
hat and like a tight T shirt and he's got
a loaded six string on his back playing for keeps
Aaron and he might not get The video has.
Speaker 4 (08:27):
More than a million views.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
I don't care, I don't Is he ringing a bell?
Have you ever heard of him?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
No?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Well, I well no, let's talk about b Et one Shot.
I can't believe you didn't remember him from that. I'm
sure you. B Et one Shot ran from twenty sixteen
to twenty seventeen.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
Oh that's that was dragging my blackout.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
It was like American Idol for hip Hop, hosted by
Sway Callowaymah yeah, at least that's what the IMDb description says.
Sway is only a producer in the credits. No, he
was on it. Mike Smith is listed as the main judge.
I think he has IMDb editing.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
He's got everywhere. He's an admin of every website you've
ever been.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
So he's on that.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
I'm telling you the guy there it is.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
He's alongside t I, Twista, dj K and everywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Another one.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Video Vixen Emmy Elliott.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I've always wanted to be called a video to.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
As like her title is video Vixen.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Yeah, I want that title to Elizabeth want to be
video here by.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
W video Vixen. And you can put it on a business.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Card really suitable for framing you go ahead.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
So Smith, he's introduced on the show as quote, music
producer and owner of S m H Records. Okay, yeah,
so the fellow judges of his King Crooked k x
NG Crooked and King Tech.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
We got to kings.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
They're introduced as quote considered one of the West Coast
greatest m seas of all time.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
And one King Bible story.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
And the man who helped spark the careers of Eminem
and jay Z.
Speaker 3 (10:12):
I find that hard to believe.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Well, King Tech is this bar area dute. He got
a morning show at Cameol with sway. Oh hell, he
took it to New York, So that's how he.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Gets So he played them early.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
Right, okay, exactly No, I was the.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
First person to play jay Z. I was the first
person to play.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
But he makes it like I made them who they are.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
Yeah, like he was in the studio but a little louder.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
He was like, how about we do it this way?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Do it on the ones and twos.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Spoiler alerte for you. The winner of one Shot was
a dude named three, which is like, if you want
to have a career, make it really googleable three three,
so unless.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Your pit bull and then just.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
Dominate take that dog. In his finale performance, he's dressed
like Jesus in a middle school passion play. Like he's
draped in a flat sheet, has a crown of thorns
that looks like it came from the Christmas garlic section
at Michael's. And he's wearing a pair of white running shoes.
Oh yeah, I cannot stress to you how horrible his
(11:20):
performance is. I feel like there's nothing that I can
say that will adequately adequately.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Convey how bad it is.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
You have to have a b ET plus subscription to
mine expired the actual episode. But I found a YouTube
video titled b ET one Shot Winter three, okay, and
in it this is like one of the first time
I always say things on here. I'm like, I don't
know what it is, and then people email or message
(11:50):
us and be like, you know, it's there's a YouTube
video of it. I'm like, what's that? I actually went
on the YouTube. So anyway, this b ET one shot
Winter three video someone filmed their TV with their classes poorly,
like it's like, it's such it's so good. Three, as
(12:12):
part of his prize, got a record deal with Mike
Smith's s m H Records. I found Three's Instagram and
it looks like he has all sorts of hustles, like
inspirational stuff. He sells merch for some thing that he got.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
Like hooked up as Sesame Street. You know, they used
to be like brought to you by the letter the
number H.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
He's got it better. He's got it better. He also
has a link on there to his only fans.
Speaker 3 (12:41):
Oh god, I had never visiteds like Sands Clothing on.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
The never visited that website. And I can say that
I truly regret. I truly regret clicking the link in
the bio.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
What did you see, Elizabeth?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
I not terrible things.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
Can't you forget them?
Speaker 5 (13:04):
It's so terrible, dude, seriously about them. I had to
I had to wash my computer. I put my computer
in the dishwasher, threw the laptop in there, and I said,
get behind me, satan.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Uh. So, I think it's safe to say that Mike
Smith did not make three a Star, you know, unless
he's is three.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
In the process of making three Star on his own.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
No, I don't think.
Speaker 6 (13:27):
So.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
What's the deal with this record label?
Speaker 6 (13:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
I mean I'm just always asking myself. The website is
smhworldwide dot net. Oh wow, and that is killing me
dead in my tracks. And according to Pitchbook, the label
was founded in twenty thirteen. It's based in Cornelius, North Carolina.
It's like twenty miles north of downtown Charlotte, Okay, And
you know what, that's also where the wrapper three happens
(13:53):
to be from.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Oh shocking, interesting cousin.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
So Cornelius is a Charlotte suburb at this point, and
Charlotte like just continues to grow and grow. So anyway,
Smah records. It was originally called Smith and Hay Productions.
We'll find out about Hey later. The label claims to
have raised thirty million dollars in venture capital funds upon
its inception. They did not spend any of that money
(14:20):
on their.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Website, I'm guessing not.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
The list of their artists is a doozy Mike Smith.
The top of Mike Smith, I mean the household flags
sway he's an artist apparently. And then William Lee Golden
of the Oakridge Boys.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Not William Lee Golden of the Okridge Boy Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
I know William Golding, but no William Lee Golden. David Frizzell,
brother of Lefty Frizzell. What, Yeah, his big hits were
You're the reason God made Oklahoma And I'm going to
hire a whino to decorate our home, Dear God, I
I wish I were making that up. Then there's Goldie Locks.
(15:03):
Her bio reads. Moonshadow is an American singer and professional
wrestler known as Goldilocks or Goldie Locks. She is perhaps
best known for her appearances with Total NonStop Action Wrestling
as an interviewer and manager. Oh lord, then we got
Jesse Kramer up in there. His bio begins, Jesse Kramer's
story is as authentic as it is unpredictable, and then
(15:27):
it concludes with the quote, I think the best way
to really understand the world is through music. I would
like people to feel and vibe with me and let
them know that there's still authentic, raw and genuine music
out there. Simply put, I want my music to really
touch people. And I'm ready to do whatever it takes
and go anywhere I must to make this happen.
Speaker 3 (15:47):
See like, that could be an earnest sentiment I would
agree with, And that could be the most annoying person.
I never wanted to be stuck in an elevator world.
I don't know. It's like he's been on a couple
of say the name is Jesse Wesll.
Speaker 4 (15:57):
His name was Jesse Kramer, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
He's been on a couple of reality TV music competition shows.
And that's what that quote kind of sounds like. It
does that we got Dave Gibson, Dude, Dave Gibson, the
songwriter who has some sort of connection to the Oakridge Boys.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
Oh okay, to go on.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
And then we have Music of the Sea, Music of
the Seed that's a hybrid publishing and licensing company, and
it looks like they're there. They know they're like the
middleman between labels or artists and the entities that want
to use their song like movie soundtracks.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Oh yeah, they do like licensing. Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
So SMH Records claims to have twenty top ten Billboard
charting albums and if you want to know which ones,
you'll have to guess because they're not listed anyway. This
is what the website says. SMH Records is one of
the biggest indie labels in the world, with twenty top
ten Billboard charting albums, numerous top forty singles, and over
(16:54):
one point five billion streams for our artists. SMH Records
is by far the most effect of label for independent
artists out there. And then they go on to talk
about their diverse catalog listing all these random names. H
SMH Records has had albums chart in the top ten
on Billboard for numerous genres, including rock, Country, Americana, Jazz, Christian,
(17:16):
and hip hop.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
They're just a one stop shop.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
Mike Smith dot net. I went there. He says he
got three top ten singles, over one billion streams, five
number one Billboard charting albums. Check out the McDonald's over there,
and yet neither of us has ever heard of him.
He's secretly popular.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
I'm still doubting at all, and as you.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
Can see, I'm not paying him much reverence. He comes
across as how do you say.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
A con artist?
Speaker 7 (17:45):
Uh?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Fake?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah? Well, good buddy. I think he is allegedly allegedly.
Speaker 3 (17:51):
Wait what is he like?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
I want to tell you about the alleged crimes of
Mike Smith because he's been indicted, but he hasn't been convicted.
He still deserves his stay in court.
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Fair enough.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
The accusations are probably not what you'd expect in terms
of scammy music industry types. Okay, it's a modern day version,
a new era, So.
Speaker 3 (18:08):
He's not doing crimes against people. He's not like going
and doing the things that we don't like of like
assaulting and all that.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
And he's not.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Getting people up with his henchmen or hanging people out
of windows of.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
No, let's take a break. When we come back, we're
going to dive deeper into his catalog.
Speaker 7 (18:23):
Okay, Mike Smith, Yes, how you do it?
Speaker 3 (18:47):
My new favorite musicians.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
As I said, according to his website, three top ten singles.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
You know I love success.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Yeah, over a billion streams.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
That's what I look for in a musician. I'm like, how
many streams? I don't care what the music sounds like. Now,
how many streams of other people listen to this?
Speaker 2 (19:01):
Does he have five number one Billboard charting albums? Not exactly?
Oh what do the kids say? The math ain't math?
Speaker 3 (19:07):
And yes they do say that. I heard they do.
Speaker 5 (19:10):
So.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
He mentions hits on various Billboard charts, Jazz, hot Christian Songs,
top album sells. None of those are available to play
on any streaming serve. It has happened to be no
one is referred to the hoodlum ball w h O
O D l U M.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Like the players ball but ball.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Oh yeah yeah, And it's supposed to be a song
that was apparently the number one hundred and fifty six
song on the Billboard two hundred and twenty eighteen, but
it can't be played on Spotify and it come it
comes up as an album not a track on band
Camp under the name Jonathan Hay with Mike Smith and
(19:49):
DJ who Kid. Yeah. So there's a track on it
called Jazzmine j A Z Z M I N E.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Features really into the spelling, aren't they.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Featuring riff Raff.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
That guy.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
If you want, you can go bury yourself in a
hole on Daytona Beach and hope it collapses on you.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Total I did.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
We hang out and smoke cigars and complain about how
things aren't plastic.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Jonathan Hay is a music publicist and he looks like
Jelly Roll without the high school detention desk scribbled on
his face.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Good call.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
His website Jonathanhay Celebrity dot com. It's pretty amazing. The
bios top notch. You have to indulge me so while
I read this is our company was established by award
winning publicist Jonathan Hay, who's widely recognized as a quote
media guru and one of the greatest publicists of all time.
(20:49):
Jonathan Hay's professional career started with Days of the New,
the multi platinum post grunge band who had four notable
hit singles. They are most known for Touch, Peel and
Stan that spent seventeen weeks at number one, breaking modern
rock record. The song was recently named greatest of all
(21:10):
time mainstream rock song by Billboard magazine. No, it wasn't.
Days of the New helped launch the career of bandmate
Nicole Chezingerzinger whatever the Pussycat Dolls, who have sold over
fifty five million records in their own right, they actually
have Imagine sure in March of two thousand and five,
(21:31):
You're gonna love this. This is why I'm quoting this.
Hay wrote Rihanna's first press release, which premiered on MTV
News for her debut single, Pawn Day Replay that was
co produced by Nobles. Shortly after, Hay launched the controversial
publicity stunt that helped Rihanna gain worldwide attention, which was
(21:54):
ten years after the legendary stunt, Hay was encouraged to
publicly apologize to Beyonce for the unauthorized biography Becoming Beyonce
by best selling author Jay Randy Taborelli. Hay was featured
in the book for his publicity tactics of spreading rumors
about a love triangle between jay Z Beyonce and.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Rihanna Oh.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
All these actions were done without malice to help boost
the debut single and launch Rihanna's career. Hey confessed that
he started those rumors during a personally difficult time. Quote
the pr stunt that I did was out of desperation
to help break ponder replay. Hay said it was reckless
and I didn't think it was gonna work. I was
(22:40):
just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it
would stick.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
I relate. That's when I claimed that Guy Fieri was
afraid of playing me in trivial pursuit. Yeah, my guy
Fieri resists this. That's how I got famed.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
You get the picture about this guy, dude.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
So this guy is He's the reason why I don't
have a personal website. People like him I just don't
want anything to do with. I'm so real, I don't
even have a website.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Researcher Marissa has a theory that Hey is an unnamed
co conspirator in what the Music Publicist aka CC two
or the Music promoter CC four in Mike Smith's indictment.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Which we'll get to s Yeah, we're gonna get there.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
So Mike Smith, he's on Spotify. His top song on
Spotify is a karaoke version of Tupacs I Ain't.
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Mad at You Wow.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And like I said, that song Hardworking Man of his
has more than one million streams on YouTube, but it
doesn't have any listed on Spotify. He also seems to
be like he's like a four hire producer and session
musician in Cornelius, North Carolina, which is a hotbed of
the music industry. I know when I hear there's a
(23:55):
hot new musical artist on the scene, I'm like, they've
got to be out of Cornelius.
Speaker 6 (23:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
Tell It's like, is it Muscles Show? Is it Cornelias One?
Speaker 2 (24:01):
It's got to be one or the other. I mentioned
streaming way back in the day. Let's talk about that.
So musicians and songwriters they make money on streaming services
via royalty pennies on the dollar, right, oh, less than pennies.
None of the services Spotify, Apple, YouTube, et cetera. None
of them want to say exactly what they pay, but
the general range is from fractions of a penny per
(24:23):
play to possibly a penny per stream. So Business Insider
says that Spotify pays artists and rights holders about point
zero zero three dollars. So you know of a cent
or point zero zero five penny per stream.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
How long have we been saying pay the piper. I mean,
we know you got to pay the musicians. We want
the musicians.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Well. For most and here's the weird thing. For most platforms,
Spotify and Apple specifically, the money is paid proportionately. There's
something that's called stream share.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
This is an algorithm.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Well, it's a proportional number based on all total monthly.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
Streams per country.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
So DK Music Business Academy explains it as such. Quote.
In simple terms, this means that if you, an artist
were to receive one in every ten thousand streams in
the United Kingdom, you'd receive one pound out of every
ten thousand pounds that Spotify pays to artists out of
their particular royalty pool for the UK. Because of the
(25:23):
way stream share is calculated, the amount of monthly royalties
you'd get for streams on your tracks is highly dependent
on whereabouts your music is streamed and Spotify's own revenue
for that market. So there's an alleged crime in here
aside from this, what it all?
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Of this?
Speaker 2 (25:43):
What's the crime all? Quote from the US Department of
Justice and their indictment. Please, from approximately twenty seventeen and
up to and including twenty twenty four, Michael Smith, a defendant,
orchestrated a scheme to steal millions of dollars of musical
royalties by fraudulently inflating music streams on digital streaming platforms
(26:04):
such as Amazon Music, outter Music, Spotify, YouTube Music. Who, Elizabeth,
what does this mean?
Speaker 3 (26:11):
Elizabeth Great questions Aaron so First.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Smith, he made a bunch of fake streaming accounts using
email addresses that he purchased online. And when I say
a bunch, I'm talking thousands.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
I was wondering, I'm like, this isn't seven ten thousand.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
He even outsourced the creation and maintenance of these streaming
accounts to paid co conspirators, And it's a lot for
just one man to man.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
I was figuring he had like whatever those task grabit
type people, and in another country it could be Yeah,
I don't know, I don't do these types of things.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
I don't know. I'm innocent.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
So then he created.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Software to stream his own music on loops from all
these different computers, so it made it look like there
were individual listeners logging in from different places to hear
the sweet tunes of now Remember how the fellas at
Studio fifty four had to call him in their ledger
marked skim Well. In twenty seventeen, Mike Smith emailed himself
(27:08):
a financial breakdown that calculated the kind of money he
could make with this. He figured he could stream his
songs six hundred and sixty one, four hundred and forty
times each day. WHOA so six hundred and sixty thousand
times a day that he figured that's going to let
him take in daily royalty payments of like thirty three
(27:32):
hundred dollars as much as one point two million in
a year.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
So the streaming services they're totally onto this though, like
they're expecting this. They know that people are greedy and
looking to crime. Smith one step ahead. Like de Bone
in Fast Times, he cast a wide net, so he
spread his activity across a shoop ton of fake songs
(27:59):
rather than just like they're looking for like, oh, this
one song out of nowhere has a no this way,
the tunes of his wouldn't draw attention because individual songs
wouldn't get too many hits. That's where people are making
their mistake. Zarin, close your eyes. Oh, I want you
to picture you are a pizza delivery driver. It's twenty
(28:21):
seventeen and the door dashes of the world are just
starting to creep into your turf. Not really out here
in Cornelius, North Carolina, but in bigger cities for sure.
You've got a delivery to a subdivision. You don't recognize
the address, but there you are, cruise along Old Statesville
Road with a steaming pie in your back seat. That's
not a euphanism. You're a pizza delivery driver.
Speaker 7 (28:41):
Dang.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
It's a typical North Carolina summer day. Hot, muggy, oppressively so,
the air is thick with moisture and the buzz of cicadas.
You see the address and screech to a halt. You
reach behind you and grab the pizza, and then get
out and make your way to the front door. The
heat and humidity hit you like a heavy blanket. You
ring the bell and wait. A middle aged man opens
(29:05):
a door and.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
Feats you with a smile.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Come on, in, He offers, no, you just try and
hand him with the pizza and tell him the total.
I gotta go get my wallet, and I don't want
to leave the front door open, and I don't want
to make you stand outside in the heat. Come on in,
he tells you, against your better judgment. You do. The
house is cool and dark, but not creepily, so follow me.
The guy tells you. You trail after him down a
hall and into what looks like a music studio. There's
(29:29):
a faint melody playing from the speakers, some sort of
acoustic guitar stuff. Another guy sits at a production deck,
fiddling with some knobs. I don't see how you're gonna
be able to make a hundred songs this week, Mike,
the man at the deck says, Mike tells you to
set the pizza on the table. When you oblige, the
man at the deck spins around his chair and is
startled to see you. You raise a feeble wave at
(29:50):
him and keep your eye on Mike, who's digging through
a pile of stuff on the table.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Until he triumphantly produces a wallet.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Aha, he says. Then he tells the other man, I've
tried farming it out. I bought some songs from a
catalog and I got some studio guys in. It's just
not cost effective and it takes so much time. Zarin,
you're a bit of an amateur futurist. You saw something
recently on Reddit about music production and AI. You mentioned
to Mike as he digs through his wallet. Ay, I
(30:18):
don't mean interfere or eavesdrop, but if you need to
make a bunch of songs in a short amount of time,
have you thought about using AI? Artificial intelligence AI? Says Mike.
The guy at the soundboard shuts off the music in
the background. You go on to explain to the pair
how it works and what they need to do. Mike's
face lights up. He hands you one hundred dollars bill.
(30:39):
Keep the change, kid. Now you are a sixty year
old woman. But whatever, A tip's a tip, all right. So, however,
he came to the realization. Sure, outside of that fictionalization,
Smith found that using AI would be a way to
make faster and cheaper music than what he had been
trying so far.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
This is what I'm hold by Sam Altman.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
He couldn't just write his own songs fast enough. I mean,
hard working man was lightning in a bottle. How can
you force such.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
An Yeah, I mean not everyone has that in them.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
Well, then it's like he bought a catalog belonging to
a music publicist, but that didn't work out for him,
And after that he tried selling his bot farming services
to other musicians who would pay him to play their
music or like hand over a chunk of their royalties
when he did, and he didn't get any takers for that.
So bring on the robots. Let's pause for our robot
(31:32):
advertising overlords. When we get back, AI is about to
ruin everything, just like it had been foretold. Mike Smith.
(32:01):
Mike Smith, Mike Smith, He's about to bust a serious scam, allegedly,
I'm rooting for allegedly.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
You'd stick it to the streamers. I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
He teamed up with the CEO of an AI music
company and a music promoter, and these two happened to
avoid any trouble with the.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Law on this.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Really yeah Smith, But Smith, Okay, So he creates an
absolutely obscenely large catalog of AI songs, fake songs, you'll like, thousands,
thousands of songs. There's no meaning, no heart no artistry,
bogus computer slacking, three long yeah, and so he's yeah thousands.
(32:39):
He's uploaded the streaming platforms every week. So he and
his partners made sure to put their misdeeds in writing.
One of the executives wrote to him in an email
in twenty nineteen that said, in part, quote keep in
mind what we're doing musically here. This is not music.
It's quote instant music. And then like the winking emoji,
(33:01):
this is a crime.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
According to the Department of Justice, the AI music exec
quote ultimately provided Smith with hundreds of thousands of AI
songs for which he could manipulate the streams. I shall
read to you from the indictment Zara oh Yes. Smith
then created randomly generated song and artist names for audio
files so that they would appear to have been created
(33:25):
by real artists rather than artificial intelligence. For example, an
alphabetically consecutive selection of twenty five of the names of
the AI song Smith used is as follows. Zygo facia, zygophyllasia, zygophyllum,
zygo septaria, zygoceptaris, zygopteron, zykeeptaurus, zygospork, zygotetiges, zygos, zygotic, zygotic, laney,
(33:53):
zygotic washstands, zyme, bedoing, zymes, zimite, zymophyte, zime, cimogenic, zymologies. I'moplastics,
i'm apears, imotechnicals, smotechnic, zimozymss. I love that the departments, like,
get a load of this crap. Here's twenty five just
the z songs. Those are just song names.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
And so he just got got around like zygo and
was like, I can work with this.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
I think he had every letter of the alphabet just
like planned out. Anyway. The quote continues similarly in an
alphabetical consecutive selection of twenty five of the names of
quote artists in the AI song Smith used is as follows. Calliope, bloom, calliope, ratum, callous, callous, humane, callous,
(34:39):
post callousness, calm, baseball, calm connected, calm force, calm identity,
calm innovation, calm knuckles, calm market, calm the super, calm, weary,
calm scorching, calorie event, calorie events, calorie screams, Calvin Man, calvinistic, dust,
(35:00):
calypso Zord, Cambelist, Dyson, Camelsi, Minerva, cambis cagelings and camel edible.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Calliope balloom sounds like a name you come up here
at a bar that you didn't want to tell someone
your real name completely.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Now, I'm a huge fan of the songs I'm be doing, but.
Speaker 3 (35:19):
Call them the super how you're not going to since I.
Speaker 2 (35:23):
Cannot play any of these for you on here because
they no longer exist. I asked the ridiculous crime director
of Tech Services, who has a PhD in the Miami
big bass sound. Oh that's right, yeah, oh yeah, Bogo
Donner bar like whose parents would do that to their kid?
But I asked him to approximate a tune for us
(35:45):
and he was offended.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
Yeah, a human to do ai music.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
And then he decided to express his offense through song.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Would you like that's a true artistic statement.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
Would you like to hear this?
Speaker 3 (35:55):
You know it? Smash that play button. If you're hearing this,
it's too late. The computers have taken over and they're
writing freaky songs and song songs. I want to write
a million hand songs and songs and song songs.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
So I want to write a million hand song and
saying over and.
Speaker 3 (36:25):
The bringing over a saying over taking. I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
I think it really captures the essence of what's going on.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah, it's like a mystery science theater three thousand like
if it if they could put out like an album
of hits, I would expect that song to be on.
Speaker 2 (36:59):
It done, done it again.
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Du bongo always he doesn't miss Now that's a big drummo.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Never never misses. I did ask chat GPT to write
me some lyrics for a song called zime Bedoing by
Calm the super It.
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Would be a fun name to name a kid, Chad GPT.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Chad, She said, Chad name, and then have his middle
initials be GPT.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Yeah, but spelled out like g e e.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Okay, okay elon. All right, So we want to hear
the lyrics that chat that Chad GPT wrote for zime
Be doing verse one, in the quiet of the storm,
I found the light, a shimmer in the dark where
day meets night. Zime Be doing whispers on the breeze,
like a quiet song carried through the trees. And then
(37:44):
the pre chorus, I felt it in the pulse deep inside,
a rhythm from the earth, No need to hide, zime
Be doing touches something true it's a feeling I can't shake,
but it's new. And then the chorus, zime be doing.
It's in my vein a gentle wave of love, like
summer rain. Every drop is a memory, soft and pure.
(38:06):
Zime be doing. We endure, We.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
Endure, ride like a horse.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
Yeah, AI thinks the artist is garbage. I guess this
is like something that someone would play on an autoharp
at an open mic night at a coffee shop in
nineteen ninety five. After listening to forty eight hours of
nothing but Enya and Tool.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
And Live altogether.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yeah, I can see that zime be dooing umberdure.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Finding a rhyme for zime but doing is not easy.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
I love it so much. By June twenty nineteen, Smith
was earning more than one hundred thousand dollars a month
a month a month, and he had to peel some
of that offer as co conspirators. According to the indictment.
I'm sure the BBC wrote quote mister Smith, prosecutors said
flatly lied to music distribution companies. In October twenty eighteen,
(38:56):
one company informed mister Smith that it had received quote
reports of streaming abuse and that it planned to remove
his songs from all stores and then, according to Variety, quote,
we need to get a ton of songs fast to
make this work around the anti fraud policies these guys
are all using. Now, that's what he wrote in an
(39:16):
email to his co conspiracy.
Speaker 3 (39:17):
You need to get around the anti fraud because what
we're doing I have to fraud harder. Brought more.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
The Mechanical Licensing Collective reached out to him, well more
than reached out.
Speaker 4 (39:29):
They confronted him.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
I was wondering, Yeah, they're the ones who distribute the royalty.
So this was in twenty twenty three. They figured there
was absolutely no way he could be generating that much
authentic music. He had to be using AI. And that
didn't even touch on the whole streaming.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Bots part of it.
Speaker 2 (39:46):
Oh yeah, so Smith, he denies any problem with what
he's up to. Quote, this is what a representative. We
have clearly demonstrated that Mike Smith's works are not AI generated,
but rather they are human authored.
Speaker 3 (40:01):
Really yeah, because he wrote in the title, well.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Calm the super is everyone's favorite artist. I don't know.
In February twenty twenty four, he wrote an email.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
Calorie event though, I mean I saw the red Rock.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Oh in original lollapalo so good.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Body count, calorie event and I think it was d side.
It was an amazing show. Calm Knuckles was there and
punched the clown.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
So Smith wrote an email another email in twenty twenty
four quote talking about his existing music has generated at
this point over four billion streams and twelve million dollars
in royalties since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Four billion. Take that j long, we know.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
How much a billion is.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
There's a lot, a lot of twelve million dollars.
Speaker 2 (40:51):
That's a lot of money. It's like Taylor Swift money.
Speaker 3 (40:53):
Yeah, that's good money.
Speaker 4 (40:54):
September twenty you can find it.
Speaker 2 (40:57):
He gets arrested, so they charged him with wire fraud conspiracy, wirefraud,
time money laundering conspiracy. Oh yeah, he could get up
to sixty years in prison. He's not happy. He wrote
a strongly worded letter.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Oh good for him. So he's doing the praz defense
from Fuji.
Speaker 2 (41:20):
Yeah, this is what he said. Quote. This is absolutely
wrong and crazy. There is absolutely no fraud going on whatsoever.
How can I appeal this? That doesn't sound like AI
And in fact I asked chat GPT to write me
a paragraph denying the charges. Yeah, this is what chat
(41:41):
GPT came about.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
God.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I categorically deny any involvement in wire fraud or money
laundering in connection with music created by AI. At no
point have I engaged in any illicit activities relating to
the production, distribution, or financial transactions involving AI generated music.
My actions have always been income clients with all relevant
laws and ethical guidelines. The creation and use of AI
(42:04):
and music is a legitimate and innovative field, and I
have been here strictly to all legal and professional standards
in my work. Any suggestion of illegal conduct regarding these
matters is entirely unfounded and untrue.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Wow, hey, I got a lot to say.
Speaker 2 (42:18):
I love that AI defends AI music totally.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
I got a question for you. You remember like the
I don't know if you went to Sunday School, but
you did CCD education with Catholics.
Speaker 2 (42:27):
I went to Catholics.
Speaker 3 (42:27):
At some point some kid will say, you know, can
God make a rock so big even God can't raise it?
Or say old George Carlin, bitch.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Sure.
Speaker 3 (42:36):
But I want to know is does anybody ever asked
AI to write a letter saying I've never used AI
took pleasure. Yeah, I want them and then put that
in court. I want someone to go to court and
he use a letter that says written by Ai, that
says I never used AI, and I want to see
how AI writes letter.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
As Bongo wrote in his song it's too late.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, the computer.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Smith he pleaded not guilty. Of course, bail said at
five hundred thousand dollars. Trial coming up to be determined,
So we're gonna mark this one as unresolved. And again
remember he has only been indicted, not convicted, so everything's
alleged totally. We're just fun in over here. Shortly after
the indictment, though, Spotify chimed in. The company said that
(43:21):
its platform accounted for less than one percent of the
ten million dollars generated in the fraud case. Quote Spotify
invests heavily in automated and manual reviews to prevent, detect,
and mitigate the impact of artificial streaming on our platform.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Is what they were flexing on the others.
Speaker 2 (43:41):
Like in this case, it appears that our preventative measures
worked and limited the royalties Smith was able to generate
from Spotify to approximately sixty thousand dollars of the ten
million noted in the indictment, as Spotify typically accounts for
around fifty percent of stream share. This shows how effective
we are at limiting the impact of artificial streaming on
(44:03):
our platform.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Now you are more of a fan of petty than
I am. On a scale of like five side eyes.
How what would you rate that on pettiness?
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Oh, they're basically like unlike some other platforms. Oh, I'd
give them four side eyes. Wow, they're like, you know,
unlike Amazon Music, we have security.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
The title you lazy, the grand is still.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
A good chunk of change, you know, for fake songs.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
I'll take it, Saren.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
What's your ridiculous takeaway?
Speaker 3 (44:30):
AI?
Speaker 2 (44:31):
AI I mean like AI.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
Oh, I'm so I'm still so mad that I used
to be able to say the words to the letters
rather AI. And everybody knew I met Alan Iverson. I
knew I met Alan Iverson. And now when I say AI,
I mean like the one of the worst most destructive
forces on the planet. And everyone was like, man, I
wish he was talking about Alan Iverson.
Speaker 4 (44:52):
Good point.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
There you go, Elizabeth.
Speaker 6 (44:55):
You know.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
It's hard enough to make it as a musician, then
you got to wade through this garbage totally.
Speaker 3 (45:02):
Yeah, and also the streamers. Just before that, you have
the streamers, then you got AI now on the back
end coming at you.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
I want I want like a major like electromagnetic event
of course, to wipe everything out. We got to go
back to like cassettes and singles.
Speaker 3 (45:18):
I want more emphasis on live music. So people are like,
and I mean like not live music, like when you
go to see a show. I mean like your uncle
starts playing the piano in the room and everyone comes
in and starts that. I see that stuff in like
old movies. You know, I watch a lot of old culture. Yeah,
my brothers exactly. It still exist in some of these
multi generational homes and homes of musicians, but I want
(45:39):
it used to be everybody. But also before we had
recorded music, almost every home they played music.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
Oh yeah, they had a piano or something.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Somebody listen.
Speaker 2 (45:46):
The other thing is that when you're talking about live music,
it shows I back the Jack White.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
Put in the back the best.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
It was amazing being in a show like that where
you don't see phones up, everyone's just watching this.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Thank you inting me to that.
Speaker 2 (46:01):
That was super cool, welcome, But like, I hate going
to a show I've never done it. Like, I just
see the person in front of me. They're filming the
whole thing.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Now they have iPads, like they hold up iPads. I
gotta start through.
Speaker 2 (46:13):
The bad Grandma at a high school graduation.
Speaker 3 (46:15):
Yeah, I just mug them, just still like we got
both hands on the iPad. Have no hand on your wallet.
That's a good I'm kidding. I don't do that anymore.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Dave, could you perhaps favorite with the talk bag?
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Hell? Yeah, I like that call. Oh my god, I
love jet.
Speaker 6 (46:44):
Ahright, I'm Karen. I just got finished listening to the
ltimb Stevens Junior kidnapping episode, and you brought up the
town of Ramlap, Alabama, where the kidnappers are from, and
how ram Lap is Palmer felt backwards and wondered if
Palmer was already taken kind of yes. I grew up
in Palmerdale, Alabama. My mom grew up in one of
my b Alabama. They are very close to each other.
The ridiculous story I always heard growing up was that
(47:07):
there was one mister Palmer who needed to name two
towns after two different sounds.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
And this was a solution. That is I love that
look at me guy, like home, Thank you for that.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Appreciates you.
Speaker 2 (47:20):
That's us for today. You can find us online at
ridiculous Crime dot com, the only website where the subscription
service we pay you.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Yeah it's true.
Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah. We're also on Blue Sky, Instagram, Friendster. You can
email us at Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com and then,
most importantly, leave a talkback on the iHeart app reach out.
Ridiculous Crime is hosted by Elizabeth Dutton and Zaren Burnett,
(47:53):
produced and edited by Robot producer Dave Cousten, starring Annalise
Rutger as Judas. Research is by lead singer of Electric
Solstice Marissa Brown and backup drummer for Lunar Wavelength Alex French.
The theme song is by manager of Crimson Circuit Thomas Lee,
an ousted bass player from Velvet Echoes Travis Dutton. Post
(48:13):
wardrobe is provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair and
makeup by Sparkleshot and mister Andre. Executive producers are booking
agent for Echo and the Astral Wolves, Ben Bolan and
Neon Sky's superfan Noel Brown. Band names by Chat.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
ChiPT Calorie, Event Forever
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Crime, Say It One More Time, Ridiculous Crime is a
production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts My heart Radio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Zaron Burnett
Elizabeth Dutton
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