Yet another reason to love the Beastie Boys: Those guys know how to settle a lawsuit.
The band settled for an undisclosed amount with GoldieBlox over the toy company’s video ad that featured a parody of their hit song “Girls.” “That settlement includes (a) the issuance of an apology by GoldieBlox, which will be posted on GoldieBlox’s website, and (b) a payment by GoldieBlox, based on a percentage of its revenues, to one or more charities selected by Beastie Boys that support science, technology, engineering and mathematics education for girls,” a spokesperson for the company told Rolling Stone.
Back in November, GoldieBlox’s video of little girls building a Rube Goldberg-like contraption to a version of “Girls” with more female-friendly lyrics went viral. The Beastie Boys expressed that they viewed this as copyright infringement. So GoldieBlox filed a lawsuit claiming the whole thing was entirely kosher because the ad was a parody and therefore protected under fair use.
The Beastie Boys said that while they loved the idea of empowering young girls, they also loved the idea of honoring the wishes of their deceased bandmate Adam Yauch, who indicated in his will that nothing he’d created could ever be used to sell products.
The band pulled the song from the video and posted an apology letter to their website. Then, in December the Beastie Boys filed a counter-suit, accusing the company of stealing music.
So yes, things got ugly, but we think this is a pretty great ending. Perhaps they might want to brainstorm with Natalie Portman for names of worthy charities? Just a thought.
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