Beastie Boys settle copyright dispute with toy company GoldieBlox
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Version 0 of 1. The Californian toy company GoldieBlox has reached a settlement with the Beastie Boys over its parody of their song Girls, which was used in an advert that went viral. On 21 November 2013, a San Francisco-based law firm representing GoldieBlox filed a pre-emptive lawsuit asking the court to rule that, because it was a parody, the company’s version of the Beastie Boys song constituted fair use. An agreement to dismiss the claim has now been reached, and was filed in a US district court on 17 March, the Oakland Tribune reported. The video, which gained more than 8m views in a week, encouraged young women to code apps, build spaceships and become engineers. Beastie Boys members Mike D and Ad-Rock – real names Michael Diamond and Adam Horowitz – responded to the campaign in an open letter, writing: As creative as it is, make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads. The Beastie Boys, who have a blanket ban on using their songs in advertisements, then countersued Goldieblox. “The video advertisement … featuring the Beastie Boys’ song Girls constitutes copyright infringement and is not fair use,” wrote the group’s lawyers back in December. “[The] lyrics [have been] modified to become a ‘jingle’ to sell GoldieBlox’s products.” The group were also respecting the wishes of their late colleague Adam Yauch, who died in 2012. Yauch’s will explicitly banned the use of his music in advertisements. No details of the settlement have been released. The case was the subject of a panel at this year’s South by Southwest festival, where licensing executives debated the rights of artists versus those seeking usage rights without payment at a discussion entitled Fighting for Their Rights: A Discussion on The Beastie Boys, Fair Use and Copyright. |