How much money do you think Baauer directly made off his viral smash "Harlem Shake" and all those video views?
If you guessed "zero," then congrats! You would apparently be correct.
Via an interview Baauer did with Pitchfork:
Pitchfork: Have you made a lot of money from it?
Baauer: I still don’t know. I haven’t seen any money from it.
Pitchfork: Why is that?
B: I’m meeting with my lawyer tomorrow for lunch, so I’m gonna find that out. I think it’s mostly because of all the legal shit. I didn’t clear the samples because I was in my fucking bedroom on Grand Street. I wasn't going to think to call up [Delgado], I didn’t even know who it was who did that [sample]; I knew the Jayson Musson [sample]. So I found myself in that fucking pickle. Legal letters and shit. Ugh. Lawyers. So exposure-wise it was fantastic, but everything else...
So, there ya go. Good to see that the more things change in the music biz, the more they stay the same...
