The Beastie Boys taught us you gotta fight for your right to party, but an American company that makes ‘feminist’ toys for children has given up on their own fight against the influential hip hop group.
In an open letter addressed directly to surviving Beasties Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond and Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horowitz, US start-up GoldieBlox – whose aim is to create toys that buck the pink-drenched stereotypes available for girls – says they’re willing to drop their lawsuit against the musicians if they in turn put their legal team’s threats of copyright infringement on a leash.
The messy legal stoush started last week, when a two minute advert for GoldieBlox toys used a cover version of the Beastie Boys track ‘Girls’, re-jigging the original’s degrading lyrics into new words encouraging creativity and breaking the boundaries of gender stereotypes.
The video quickly went viral, racking up millions of views and much applause for its feminist re-imagining of the Beasties’ 1987 original, but the rap group’s legal team weren’t so happy, contacting the toy company over using the song without permission and acting on the last wishes of Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, whose will contains a clause to ensure his musical legacy was not misused for “advertising purposes.” “We were completely unaware that the late, great Adam Yauch had requested in his will that the Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising.”
In a preemptive move, GoldieBlox filed a lawsuit against the Beastie Boys, producer Rick Rubin, label Def Jam Music Group, and publishers Sony/ATV, filing their legal complaint in the California Federal Court, claiming their ‘Girls’ advert was a parody of the song – a satire and not a parody and therefore falling under the “fair use” defence that makes it exempt from copyright infringement.
However, in an open letter issued on Wednesday via Goldieblox’s website, the toymakers are offering a laurel wreath and have taken down the ‘Girls’ advertisement from online sources, as Consequence Of Sound points out.
“Dear Adam + Mike. We don’t want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans,” the correspondence begins, adding: “We are ready to stop the lawsuit as long as this means we will no longer be under threat from your legal team.”
GoldieBlox also says they “completely unaware that the late, great Adam Yauch had requested in his will that the Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising. Although we believe our parody video falls under fair use, we would like to respect his wishes and yours.”
As for the lawsuit, the US toymakers defend, “as a small company, we had no choice but to stand up for ourselves. We did so sincerely hoping we could come to a peaceful settlement with you.” (View the full open letter below.)
In related news, the Beastie Boys are still in an open case defending a lawsuit over the use of allegedly illegal samples on their landmark 1989 album Paul’s Boutique. Interestingly, a tribute to that same album – that uses the source material the Beasties and production crew, the Dust Brothers, used to construct the album – is hitting Australia for a tour next year.
Dear Adam and Mike,
We don’t want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans.
When we made our parody version of your song, ‘Girls’, we did it with the best of intentions. We wanted to take a song we weren’t too proud of, and transform it into a powerful anthem for girls. Over the past week, parents have sent us pictures and videos of their kids singing the new lyrics with pride, building their own Rube Goldberg machines in their living rooms and declaring an interest in engineering. It’s been incredible to watch.
Our hearts sank last week when your lawyers called us with threats that we took very seriously. As a small company, we had no choice but to stand up for ourselves. We did so sincerely hoping we could come to a peaceful settlement with you.
We want you to know that when we posted the video, we were completely unaware that the late, great Adam Yauch had requested in his will that the Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising. Although we believe our parody video falls under fair use, we would like to respect his wishes and yours.
Since actions speak louder than words, we have already removed the song from our video. In addition, we are ready to stop the lawsuit as long as this means we will no longer be under threat from your legal team.
We don’t want to spend our time fighting legal battles. We want to inspire the next generation. We want to be good role models. And we want to be your friends.
Sincerely,
Debbie + Team GoldieBlox
