The Transcript (Segment 8)

Broadcast: THE TRUTH FILES

Episode Title: The Mermaid Hypothesis

Air Date: June 28, 2020

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF TELEVISION BROADCAST

HOST: We just heard an earful on the topic of SirenSong and its embattled CEO, Dominick Torrent. Earlier this week, Mr. Torrent himself was gracious enough to take me on a tour of SirenSong corporate headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and to sit down with me for a one-on-one interview. The following pre-recorded footage is being broadcast unedited and in its entirety.

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HOST: Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with me today, Mr. Torrent. I know you're a busy man. Your corporate headquarters are absolutely stunning.

TORRENT: Thank you. We've certainly come a long way for a company that started operating out of a tiny one-room recording studio.

HOST: Indeed you have. Now, tell me. Was that studio in Seoul or New York?

TORRENT: New York. I had the idea for the app while living in Korea, but I didn't start work developing SirenSong until after I moved back to the States. The product spent years in development before we launched the first version in 2016.

HOST: And as the whole world knows, that first version of SirenSong made quite a splash.

TORRENT: SirenSong exceeded everyone's expectations. Even mine. It's been a labor of love for a long time, and I always believed in its potential, but I never imagined the level of success that we've accomplished.

HOST: Last year, just three years after that initial product launch, you succeeded in having SirenSong listed on the New York Stock Exchange.

TORRENT: Yes, the IPO went very well, and the stock has performed above expectations in the months since then. Our investors couldn't be happier.

HOST: You have your share of detractors, however. It's unusual, wouldn't you say, for a technology company to have an organized movement with the sole purpose of its destruction?

TORRENT: Unusual. That's one way to put it [laughs]. Listen, we disrupted a longstanding, multi-billion-dollar industry. Some degree of backlash was inevitable and perfectly understandable. I sympathize greatly with those who lost work as a result of our success. I should stress, though, that SirenSong has created thousands of new jobs. We now have many former recording-industry professionals who work right here in this building. We're building a new kind of music industry here—I would argue a better music industry, and I think our listeners agree. It's only a very small minority who have unfortunately chosen to undermine our mission rather than join us.

HOST: What do you mean by that exactly: a better music industry?

TORRENT: We created a sensory experience that simply surpasses the capabilities of previous technologies. If you look back over the history of the recording business, it's the same story over and over again. Some of your viewers may be old enough to remember eight tracks? Cassette tapes? Compact discs? It's been a steady march forward, and each advance has resulted in the previous technology becoming obsolete.

HOST: Yes, but you do see how SirenSong marks an important departure from all of those examples.

TORRENT: I wouldn't say a departure. I'd say a natural next step.

HOST: But SirenSong didn't just render some technology obsolete. Compact discs may have replaced cassette tapes, but they didn't change the fact that all mothers sang lullabies to their children. SirenSong changed that. Researchers from Harvard University recently conducted a study on parents of colicky infants, and they found that nearly 90% now use SirenSong as their primary soothing technique. Do you find that at all problematic?

TORRENT: On the contrary, I think it's wonderful that parents have found this use for our technology. We have many leading pediatricians who recommend leaving SirenSong to play overnight in infant nurseries. It promotes sleeping through the night. In fact, SirenSong has now been adopted by several major hospitals for use in their neonatal intensive care units. Clinical studies have shown that it promotes healing in newborns who are sick or born prematurely.

HOST: But at the same time, SirenSong has rendered a mother singing to her child...obsolete.

TORRENT: We created a product. We can't help it if listeners, young and old, unanimously prefer our product to other previously existing products.

HOST: Do you consider the human voice a product?

TORRENT: Of course it's a product. It always has been. No one had any problem with that idea when human voices were being packaged and marketed to consumers. No one thought twice about paying for a recording of Ed Sheeran or Alicia Keys. That's the very definition of a product, and our product is simply preferable.

HOST: Preferable to 99.999% of human voices, correct? I believe that claim was made in your company's own IPO filings.

TORRENT: That data is out of date. We were able to produce a new, fully optimized version of the SirenSong technology shortly before the IPO.

HOST: And that version—

TORRENT: The latest release of SirenSong outperforms the sensory experience of 100% of human voices.

HOST: I see. In other words, there is no human alive who could out-sing it.

TORRENT: Correct. Quite an accomplishment, isn't it?

HOST: I'll let our viewers answer that question for themselves. For now, setting SirenSong aside, I'd like to talk about some of the attacks that have been levied against you personally.

TORRENT: Good. I welcome the opportunity to set the record straight.

HOST: That's our aim with this broadcast: to set the record straight. I must warn you that our Truth Files investigation has uncovered some evidence that you may not have seen before.

TORRENT: I have nothing to hide.

HOST: What can you tell us about your relationship with Mae Song Yee?

TORRENT: Mae again, huh?

HOST: Again?

TORRENT: Let's just say it's been a common theme. Is Ben Pierce behind this new evidence of yours by any chance? Because you do realize the poor guy is completely unhinged—

HOST: How exactly did Mae Song Yee come to leave her contract with the Korean entertainment group, LM Records?

TORRENT: Her K-pop label? She retired. She'd been performing since she was four years old, and she didn't want to do it anymore.

HOST: So it was her choice to retire?

TORRENT: Of course.

HOST: Did you have anything to do with her decision?

TORRENT: If you're asking whether we were romantically involved, then the answer is yes. Not at first, but eventually, we were—

HOST: Setting aside your personal relationship, were you involved in helping her break her contract with LM Records?

TORRENT: I'm not sure I understand the question.

HOST: Our investigation has obtained evidence that Mae Song Yee was not simply released from LM Records. Her contract was bought out by another overseas corporation—a corporation that appears, upon close examination, to be a shell company registered on the same date and time as SirenSong LLC. You registered that company, didn't you?

TORRENT: Are you asking if I bought out Mae's contract? Yes. I did. She was trapped in her deal with LM, and I helped her out of it. I bought her freedom. It was the only way to get them to release her.

HOST: So when Mae moved to New York City, she was technically under contract to a company owned by you.

TORRENT: Technically, but Mae wasn't an employee to me. She was much more than that.

HOST: Tell us what she was to you?

TORRENT: Mae and I were friends at first. She came to New York when SirenSong was still in its earliest stages of development, and we made so much progress together. She and I used to spend all night in the studio, producing all the vocal samples I needed. Thousands upon thousands of recordings. We worked together, and eventually we became...more than friends and collaborators. Much more.

HOST: You were lovers?

TORRENT: Not at first, but yes. Mae was the love of my life. After her death, I threw myself into the work because I didn't know any other way to deal with the grief. If you've ever experienced the loss of a loved one, then perhaps you can understand—

HOST: Her death on September 11, 2001?

TORRENT: Yes.

HOST: Mr. Torrent, The Truth Files has obtained evidence that Mae Song Yee did not, in fact, die in the 9/11 terrorist attack.

TORRENT: Not this. I'm sorry. I will speak openly with you about anything else, but I hope you can understand how painful this topic is to me.

HOST: Nevertheless, our audience needs to see this, and I'd like to give you the chance to respond. This is surveillance footage from a bus station, recorded in 2006. I have to warn our viewers that this image is disturbing.

TORRENT: Turn that off. That's clearly been doctored. It isn't real—

HOST: Is the woman in the video Mae Song Yee?

TORRENT: Probably not. I don't know who it is. I don't know anything about it!

HOST: You'll see when the woman turns around, she has her hand pressed against her throat. Right here. And when she takes her hand away—

TORRENT: Turn it off.

HOST: For our viewers who may not be familiar, the woman in the video appears to have a prosthetic speaking valve embedded in her throat. We have a clearer image of one here from the device manufacturer. These devices are most frequently used by patients in the aftermath of throat cancer, after their larynx, or voice box, has been surgically removed. Without vocal chords, such a device is necessary to produce speech. Here in this close-up, you can see the device in the woman's neck quite clearly.

But the question, of course, is why Mae Song Yee had one of these. She didn't have throat cancer, did she? She had her larynx removed for some other purpose. And would that purpose have anything to do with SirenSong, Mr. Torrent?

TORRENT: I refuse to justify that question with an answer.

HOST: Mae Song Yee had her larynx surgically removed against her will. Didn't she? When it came right down to it, you needed the vocal chords, not the woman, to move forward with your so-called product development. So you had her voice box taken out at some point after you acquired her contract from LM. And then you proceeded to use it for the next 15 years to develop SirenSong.

TORRENT: This is preposterous. Turn the camera off.

HOST: Mr. Torrent, do you deny—

TORRENT: That's it. We're done here. This interview is over.