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GoldieBlox settles lawsuit with Beastie Boys over parody video

GoldieBlox fought for its right to parody and this was the result.

 

Fernando Alfonso III

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Posted on Mar 18, 2014   Updated on May 31, 2021, 3:05 pm CDT

Toy maker GoldieBlox has settled its lawsuit against the Beastie Boys over the use of the rappers song “Girls” in a promotional video.

Both sides agreed to the dismissal of the claim. But the exact details of the settlement have not released, according to Inside Bay Area.

The settlement ends nearly four months of drama stirred up by the Oakland, Calif.-based toy company.

In late November GoldieBlox released a YouTube video featuring girls building spaceships and coding new apps set to the ‘90s hit “Girls.” The video collected 8 million views in a week before lawyers for Beastie Boys threatened the company with intellectual property infringement, calling the unauthorized use of the song a “big problem” that has a “very significant impact.”

GoldieBlox ended up taking the  video down.

In response to Beastie Boys’s legal posturing, GoldieBlox filed a lawsuit against the rap group to preempt copyright infringement threats. The toy company also argued that the video was a parody, one of the fair-use exceptions to copyright infringement.

Beastie Boys countersued in GoldieBlox in December. The status of that suit is unclear.

Photo via GoldieBlox/YouTube

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*First Published: Mar 18, 2014, 1:28 pm CDT