Reader Dan points us to a long, but fascinating article by someone tracing a number of stories involving famous Western pop stars copying famous songs that originated in Cameroon, without any credit (or, of course, money) -- including the song by Shakira that is currently the World Cup theme song -- which some folks did some online detective work to track down its origins:

Ze Bella who had retired from the Presidential Guards in 2002 was enjoying a quiet retirement in his village when he got a call from an acquaintance in France informing him that Shakira had just released a version of Zangalewa. This information was soon confirmed by Emile Kojidy another Golden Sounds alum now living in the United States. They were both right.

A few days earlier, the Internet had been inundated with buzz about the new song by Columbian pop star Shakira titled "Zaminamina" which was rumoured to be the official anthem for the FIFA 2010 World Cup. To many listeners, the song was eerily familiar and many bloggers and journalist sought to find out the origins of the song....

To Cameroonians and many African, the origins of the song was no mystery as they instantly recognized it as a remix of "Zangalewa". Thus began a frenzied online campaign to alert the world that this was not a Shakira original but a remix.

After the evidence became overwhelming, and people started complaining, Shakira's label (Sony) was forced to come to the table and settle (some believe that FIFA pushed them to make sure that the song was "cleared" before they would use it as the World Cup official song). Now, I, like many don't think there's anything wrong with musicians building on the works of others. It's how music has pretty much always been created. However, it does seem very hypocritical for all these big labels and big musicians to be whining about copyright infringement, when it appears that they try to get away with it themselves when they can.