Beastie Boys Sue Oakland Based Toy Company Goldieblox

The Beastie Boys are pioneers in the field of hip-hop and rap music and are also very well aware of copyright laws. Representatives of the award winning group stated a case that their rights were infringed upon by a California based toy company GoldieBlox.

The small company that was founded by last year by Stanford alum Debbie Sterling just over a year ago is based in Oakland, California and had released a commercial promoting a new toy earlier this year on YouTube. In that video she parodied the Beastie Boys hit “Girls” by changing lyrics to showcase the new construction toy and storybook combo pack that is designed for young girls. The video has since been taken off of the YouTube website.

“GoldieBlox achieved and continues to achieve additional publicity, press coverage, and, upon information and belief, greater sales of its products, as a direct result of the Beastie Boys’ perceived affiliation with the GoldieBlox Advertisement,” the suit reads. “Unfortunately, rather than developing an original advertising campaign to inspire its customers to create and innovate, GoldieBlox has instead developed an advertising campaign that condones and encourages stealing from others.”

A lawyer spoke on behalf of the Beastie Boys in explaining the lawsuit. The late Adam Yauch, one of the bands founders, was very much against the group’s music being used for any commercial advertising. The lawyer went on to claim that GoldieBox has a reputation for using the works of other artists in it’s online advertising campaigns.

GoldieBox’s stance on the issue is that they are only using a parody version of the song and they don’t believe that they are actually profiting from the use of the music.

On The Web:

Beastie Boys sue Oakland toy company GoldieBlox
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_24705564/beastie-boys-sue-oakland-toy-company-goldieblox