--- title: 'Harlem Shake' Controversy over Royalties and Sampling description: The time to make "Harlem Shake" meme videos may have peaked, with Google searches for the phrase beginning to taper off in mid-February, but the... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7119588/harlem-shake-controversy-artists-behind-unlicensed-samples-seek-money-from-hit-song/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2013-03-11T17:08:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-25T05:56:46.252Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: 'Harlem Shake' Controversy: Artists Behind Unlicensed Samples Seek Money from Hit Song og:description: Two artists say their voices were sampled on the hit dance track without their permissions og:url: https://time.com/archive/7119588/harlem-shake-controversy-artists-behind-unlicensed-samples-seek-money-from-hit-song/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7673f111ffe2ab07/698a8f16929fad6722c022e7/158809168.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Snowglobe Music Festival - Day 1 - Lake Tahoe, CA og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 'Harlem Shake' Controversy: Artists Behind Unlicensed Samples Seek Money from Hit Song twitter:description: Two artists say their voices were sampled on the hit dance track without their permissions twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7673f111ffe2ab07/698a8f16929fad6722c022e7/158809168.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Entertainment](/section/entertainment/) # 'Harlem Shake' Controversy: Artists Behind Unlicensed Samples Seek Money from Hit Song > Sponsored content. 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(Photo by Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images)Getty Images—2012 Tim Mosenfelder by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Mar 11, 2013 5:08 PM UTC The time to make “Harlem Shake” meme videos may have peaked, with Google searches for the phrase [beginning to taper off](http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=harlem%20shake&date=1%2F2013%2012m&cmpt=q) in mid-February, but the hit dance track by the producer known as Baauer is still making headlines. Not that every headline is welcome: while the song remains on top of _Billboard_‘s [Hot 100](http://www.billboard.com/charts/hot-100) chart for the third week, it’s also the subject of a new controversy over what two artists claim are music samples used without permission. (**MORE**: [The Harlem Shake Is Dead; Long Live the Harlem Shake](http://entertainment.time.com/2013/02/22/the-harlem-shake-is-dead-long-live-the-harlem-shake)) As the New York _Times_ [reports](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/arts/music/baauers-harlem-shake-hits-no-1-with-unlicensed-samples.html?hp&%5Fr=0), the former reggaetón artist Hector Delgado and the rapper Jayson Musson were both told by friends, after the fact, that their voices appeared on Baauer’s “Harlem Shake.” Both are heard at crucial points in the song, with the former saying “_con los terroristas_” and latter voicing the phrase “Do the Harlem Shake!” Both say their work was sampled without permission and both are now negotiating to get a cut of the payday from the song’s overwhelming viral success. As the _Times_ makes clear, royalties and licenses are a must for music samples of any length—but younger or smaller companies (like Baauer’s label Mad Decent Records) may, because they lack their own stable of contract and licensing pros, depend on their artists to do their own homework over whether the samples they use are truly up for grabs. (**MORE**: [How Your Harlem Shake Videos Make Money for the Original Artist](http://business.time.com/2013/02/21/how-your-harlem-shake-videos-makes-money-for-the-original-artist)) As a [1991 TIME article](http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,973092,00.html) on the music sampling boom explains, copyright law predates the ability to sample easily—a technological fact that has only become more and more true—and means that not getting artists’ approvals can be a million-dollar mistake: --- > “” --- The growing ease of sampling has coincided with growing difficulty tracing samples: as Baauer told the [_Daily Beast_](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/17/meet-baauer-the-man-behind-the-harlem-shake.html) in February, he got the line now identified as the voice of Delgado “somewhere off the Internet, I don’t even know where.” Although Mad Decent and Baauer appear to be cooperating in negotiations with Delgado and Musson, the increasing power of the Internet—and YouTube specifically—in the music world may mean that “Harlem Shake” won’t be the last example of a hit song sourcing unlicensed samples from, well, somewhere. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7119588/harlem-shake-controversy-artists-behind-unlicensed-samples-seek-money-from-hit-song/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7119588/harlem-shake-controversy-artists-behind-unlicensed-samples-seek-money-from-hit-song/"},"headline":"'Harlem Shake' Controversy: Artists Behind Unlicensed Samples Seek Money from Hit Song","datePublished":"2013-03-11T17:08:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-25T05:56:46.252Z","description":"The time to make \"Harlem Shake\" meme videos may have peaked, with Google searches for the phrase beginning to taper off in mid-February, but the...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7119588/harlem-shake-controversy-artists-behind-unlicensed-samples-seek-money-from-hit-song/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7673f111ffe2ab07/698a8f16929fad6722c022e7/158809168.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Entertainment","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7673f111ffe2ab07/698a8f16929fad6722c022e7/158809168.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Snowglobe Music Festival - Day 1 - Lake Tahoe, CA","caption":"Snowglobe Music Festival - Day 1 - Lake Tahoe, CA","creditText":"Getty Images—2012 Tim Mosenfelder","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/entertainment/","name":"Entertainment"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7119588/harlem-shake-controversy-artists-behind-unlicensed-samples-seek-money-from-hit-song/","name":"'Harlem Shake' Controversy: Artists Behind Unlicensed Samples Seek Money from Hit Song"}}]}] ```