Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio.
There, listen, I want you to think very carefully about this.
Okay, do I need to like focus?
You know it's ridiculous.
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.
Okay, yeah, that's right.
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.
A lot because one hundred and twenty grams is one cup of flowers purpose.
They have to be wrong because I'm going off with British tabloids from.
Two cups of whole all purpose.
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.
But it made that it would lift off his head.
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. 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.
I don't know. That's ridiculous.
That's what's ridiculous, Elizabeth.
Well, do you want to know what else is ridiculous?
How they value drugs on the Okay?
What Elizabeth Robot music? Oh hell yeah, this is ridiculous Crime a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heists and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and undred percent ridiculous.
I know you heard that.
It's right, you heard it. You and I know a lot of musicians.
Actually, yeah, surprisingly.
Surprisingly back in the day, these musicians they sold these things called albums, but.
They still saw those. They just don't they actually anymore.
CDs, CD ROM CDs. But like, the album sales was a revenue source, like a physical album sale, like in addition to touring.
Physical act it's really important.
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.
That they found a way to make it legal.
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.
Totally.
I mean we've all done it.
I still.
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.
A whole album, and they started buying.
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, Yes Bad Bunny, Say Drake, Yes Billy Eilish, Ellish, Philly, Lady Gaga, Bruno, Mars, and ets. They dominate the charts on those You know.
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.
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.
Tell me each passing day, it's more likely more and more likely.
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.
That's cool.
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 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, not Sam Smith. The Smith is there?
Mike Smith, like the Replacements or something like that.
Mike Smith, Mike and the Mechanics.
Oh yeah, Mike Smith.
Mike Smith is huge Smith. Let me read you, Let me read you some of his Spotify bio.
Just help you out here, Please inform me, educate me.
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, broke up, and on the tenth anniversary of their breakup, they reconnected and have been together ever since. Yeah.
I got to laugh at trying to explain to somebody. No, I'm really Cuban, all right, Mike Smith, Okay, Mike Smith.
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 three regional chains of medical practices. Oh, I mean that is like a star is born.
Totally. It's the artist path.
It completely is.
This is according canuisitions on your way.
To Can I read to you from Wikipedia?
Please?
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 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.
Oh wow, that's quite an interesting list. Like he also apparently has Wikipedia editing privileges.
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.
Do you know if you look up Pitbull, he outranks the dog you go in and like, yeah, he's very form.
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. 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.
More than a million views.
I don't care, I don't Is he ringing a bell? Have you ever heard of him?
No?
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.
Oh that's that was dragging my blackout.
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.
He's got everywhere. He's an admin of every website you've ever been.
So he's on that.
I'm telling you the guy there it is.
He's alongside t I, Twista, dj K and everywhere.
Another one.
Video Vixen Emmy Elliott.
I've always wanted to be called a video to.
As like her title is video Vixen.
Yeah, I want that title to Elizabeth want to be video here by.
W video Vixen. And you can put it on a business.
Card really suitable for framing you go ahead.
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.
We got to kings.
They're introduced as quote considered one of the West Coast greatest m seas of all time.
And one King Bible story.
And the man who helped spark the careers of Eminem and jay Z.
I find that hard to believe.
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.
Gets So he played them early.
Right, okay, exactly No, I was the.
First person to play jay Z. I was the first person to play.
But he makes it like I made them who they are.
Yeah, like he was in the studio but a little louder.
He was like, how about we do it this way?
Do it on the ones and twos.
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.
Your pit bull and then just.
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 performance is. I feel like there's nothing that I can say that will adequately adequately.
Convey how bad it is.
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 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 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.
Like hooked up as Sesame Street. You know, they used to be like brought to you by the letter the number H.
He's got it better. He's got it better. He also has a link on there to his only fans.
Oh god, I had never visiteds like Sands Clothing on.
The never visited that website. And I can say that I truly regret. I truly regret clicking the link in the bio.
What did you see, Elizabeth?
I not terrible things.
Can't you forget them?
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.
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.
In the process of making three Star on his own.
No, I don't think.
So.
What's the deal with this record label?
Yeah?
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 to be from.
Oh shocking, interesting cousin.
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 on their.
Website, I'm guessing not.
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.
Not William Lee Golden of the Okridge Boy Yeah.
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. 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 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.
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.
His name was Jesse Kramer, I don't know.
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.
Oh okay, to go on.
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.
Oh yeah, they do like licensing. Okay.
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 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, and hip hop.
They're just a one stop shop.
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.
I'm still doubting at all, and as you.
Can see, I'm not paying him much reverence. He comes across as how do you say.
A con artist?
Uh?
Fake?
Yeah? Well, good buddy. I think he is allegedly allegedly.
Wait what is he like?
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.
Fair enough.
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.
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.
And he's not.
Getting people up with his henchmen or hanging people out of windows of.
No, let's take a break. When we come back, we're going to dive deeper into his catalog.
Okay, Mike Smith, Yes, how you do it?
My new favorite musicians.
As I said, according to his website, three top ten singles.
You know I love success.
Yeah, over a billion streams.
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?
Does he have five number one Billboard charting albums? Not exactly? Oh what do the kids say? The math ain't math?
And yes they do say that. I heard they do.
So.
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.
Like the players ball but ball.
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 DJ who Kid. Yeah. So there's a track on it called Jazzmine j A Z Z M I N E.
Features really into the spelling, aren't they.
Featuring riff Raff.
That guy.
If you want, you can go bury yourself in a hole on Daytona Beach and hope it collapses on you.
Total I did.
We hang out and smoke cigars and complain about how things aren't plastic.
Jonathan Hay is a music publicist and he looks like Jelly Roll without the high school detention desk scribbled on his face.
Good call.
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. 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 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,
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 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.
Rihanna Oh.
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 just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if it would stick.
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.
You get the picture about this guy, dude.
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.
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.
Which we'll get to s Yeah, we're gonna get there.
So Mike Smith, he's on Spotify. His top song on Spotify is a karaoke version of Tupacs I Ain't.
Mad at You Wow.
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 hot new musical artist on the scene, I'm like, they've got to be out of Cornelius.
Yeah.
Tell It's like, is it Muscles Show? Is it Cornelias One?
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
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.
How long have we been saying pay the piper. I mean, we know you got to pay the musicians. We want the musicians.
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.
This is an algorithm.
Well, it's a proportional number based on all total monthly.
Streams per country.
Oh my god.
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 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?
Of this?
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 such as Amazon Music, outter Music, Spotify, YouTube Music. Who, Elizabeth, what does this mean?
Elizabeth Great questions Aaron so First.
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.
I was wondering, I'm like, this isn't seven ten thousand.
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.
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.
I don't know. I'm innocent.
So then he created.
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 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 hundred dollars as much as one point two million in a year.
Wow.
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 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 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.
Dang.
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 a door and.
Feats you with a smile.
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 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 him and keep your eye on Mike, who's digging through a pile of stuff on the table.
Until he triumphantly produces a wallet.
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 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. 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.
This is what I'm hold by Sam Altman.
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.
An Yeah, I mean not everyone has that in them.
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 advertising overlords. When we get back, AI is about to ruin everything, just like it had been foretold. Mike Smith.
Mike Smith, Mike Smith, He's about to bust a serious scam, allegedly, I'm rooting for allegedly.
You'd stick it to the streamers. I'm saying.
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.
Law on this.
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. 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, this is a crime.
Right.
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 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, 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.
And so he just got got around like zygo and was like, I can work with this.
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, 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, calypso Zord, Cambelist, Dyson, Camelsi, Minerva, cambis cagelings and camel edible.
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.
Now, I'm a huge fan of the songs I'm be doing, but.
Call them the super how you're not going to since I.
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 and he was offended.
Yeah, a human to do ai music.
And then he decided to express his offense through song.
Would you like that's a true artistic statement.
Would you like to hear this?
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.
So I want to write a million hand song and saying over and.
The bringing over a saying over taking. I love that.
I think it really captures the essence of what's going on.
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.
It done, done it again.
Du bongo always he doesn't miss Now that's a big drummo.
Never never misses. I did ask chat GPT to write me some lyrics for a song called zime Bedoing by Calm the super It.
Would be a fun name to name a kid, Chad GPT.
Chad, She said, Chad name, and then have his middle initials be GPT.
Yeah, but spelled out like g e e.
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 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. Zime be doing. We endure, We.
Endure, ride like a horse.
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.
And Live altogether.
Yeah, I can see that zime be dooing umberdure.
Finding a rhyme for zime but doing is not easy.
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, 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 email to his co conspiracy.
You need to get around the anti fraud because what we're doing I have to fraud harder. Brought more.
The Mechanical Licensing Collective reached out to him, well more than reached out.
They confronted him.
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.
Bots part of it.
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.
Really yeah, because he wrote in the title, well.
Calm the super is everyone's favorite artist. I don't know. In February twenty twenty four, he wrote an email.
Calorie event though, I mean I saw the red Rock.
Oh in original lollapalo so good.
Body count, calorie event and I think it was d side. It was an amazing show. Calm Knuckles was there and punched the clown.
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.
Four billion. Take that j long, we know.
How much a billion is.
There's a lot, a lot of twelve million dollars.
That's a lot of money. It's like Taylor Swift money.
Yeah, that's good money.
September twenty you can find it.
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.
Oh good for him. So he's doing the praz defense from Fuji.
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 GPT came about.
God.
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 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.
Wow, hey, I got a lot to say.
I love that AI defends AI music totally.
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.
I went to Catholics.
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.
Sure.
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.
As Bongo wrote in his song it's too late.
Yeah, the computer.
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 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.
Is what they were flexing on the others.
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 our platform.
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?
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.
The title you lazy, the grand is still.
A good chunk of change, you know, for fake songs.
I'll take it, Saren.
What's your ridiculous takeaway?
AI?
AI I mean like AI.
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.
Good point.
There you go, Elizabeth.
You know.
It's hard enough to make it as a musician, then you got to wade through this garbage totally.
Yeah, and also the streamers. Just before that, you have the streamers, then you got AI now on the back end coming at you.
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.
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
it used to be everybody. But also before we had recorded music, almost every home they played music.
Oh yeah, they had a piano or something.
Somebody listen.
The other thing is that when you're talking about live music, it shows I back the Jack White.
Put in the back the best.
It was amazing being in a show like that where you don't see phones up, everyone's just watching this.
Thank you inting me to that.
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.
Now they have iPads, like they hold up iPads. I gotta start through.
The bad Grandma at a high school graduation.
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.
Dave, could you perhaps favorite with the talk bag?
Hell? Yeah, I like that call. Oh my god, I love jet.
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 there was one mister Palmer who needed to name two towns after two different sounds.
And this was a solution. That is I love that look at me guy, like home, Thank you for that.
Appreciates you.
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.
Yeah it's true.
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, 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 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.
ChiPT Calorie, Event Forever
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.