Producer David Herrero comes under fire for sampling UR's 'Transition' without permission

The track has no been removed from all digital stores.

Spanish tech house producer David Herrero has come under fire for illegally sampling vocals from Underground Resistance’s ‘Transition’.

Cornelius Harris, the original track’s vocalist, took to Facebook to note that the sample was used without permission: “I have to be honest, discovering that [Herrero] took my voice and used it for one of [his] tracks WITHOUT contacting me or anyone else associated really pisses me off. Take that crap down NOW. No joke.”

Herrero’s track, ‘Make a Transition’, was released on a comp called Miami 2017 via the Stereo Productions label helmed Spain’s Chus & Ceballos. It has now been removed “from all sales platforms and [their] own channels,” according to a statement they made to Resident Advisor. They also add that they “deeply regret” the situation” “Unfortunately we didn’t know the original track where the vocal was taken from… we are doing everything needed to repair this situation from the very first moment.”

Harris released this statement to RA:

“My friend Ross Carlos Nilmmns is the one who brought this to my attention and as I was ill, he made the initial request to have it taken down (at my request).

While one of the label guys, “Poco” Oliveira, replied, a lot of it was the standard, “we didn’t know, we will remove it, but this takes time” bullshit that some labels tend to reply with when they know they’ve done wrong. But here’s the thing.

Chus & Ceballos have done this before. For a mix on Toolroom a few years back they used another bootleg claiming they didn’t know it was a bootleg even though it was titled “Transitions (Bootleg Remix).” So for whatever reasons these guys have a love for bootleg versions of Transition and not paying the original creators.

Would we say “no” to the release and forgo the money? Very possibly. But that doesn’t matter. You don’t take other people’s work and release it as your own and you seek out bootlegs to sell in your mixes.

As I’ve stated online, DJs make unofficial versions of tracks and post them on SoundCloud, Mixcloud, YouTube, whatever. They program them in their sets and make unique and special versions. Black Dog once did a mix that was all their remixed versions of UR tracks. But there’s a HUGE jump from that to this. And Chus & Ceballos and every label they release with knows this.”

Listen to both tracks below.