Baauer's in Trouble

So it turns out that Baauer's Harlem Shake uses two unlicensed vocal samples. This would largely have gone unnoticed, were it not for the massive amount of recent internet attention that propelled the song to the Billboard #1 Chart Position.

Now Mad Decent (Baauer's record label) are in legal discussions with the original artists, but nobody is willing to talk about details. Jayson Musson, one fifth of early 2000s rap group Plastic Little and man behind the original "do the harlem shake" sample hilariously called up Harry "Baauer" Rodrigues and thanked him for "doing something useful with our annoying music."

Universal Music's daughter label Machete Music, who own the introductory "con los terroristas" sample, issued a considerably douchier response, as is to be fully expected from a major label:

"Hector will get what he deserves," he said. "We can turn around and stop that song. That’s a clear breaking of intellectual property rights."
(via NY Times)

We live in a complicated world for electronic music. On the one hand, sampling has been an integral part of innovation ever since the MPC first made it into the bedrooms of early hip-hop producers in the late 80's. On the other hand, the recording industry continues to push for a draconian lockdown on all copyright laws in what can only be described as a severely misguided attempt to protect their intellectual property. How much copyright is too much copyright? It's an interesting question, but we'll save that one for a different day.