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Beastie Boys settle with toy maker over Girls copyright dispute

Hippity hoppity heroes in secret deal with girl-boffin blockstack baroness

The remaining members of the Beastie Boys have quietly settled their curious legal spat with US toy maker Goldieblox.

The hip-hop stars bowled a sueball at Goldieblox in December last year, after the toy San Francisco-based company - which specialises in building blocks purported to get little girls interested in engineering - had dropped a lawsuit on the Beastie Boys, after it had used the band's song Girls in a TV ad.

The firm immediately regretted getting involved in a legal fight with the Beastie Boys, however.

Goldieblox had argued the advert, which featured a reworked version of the song, was a parody and thus shielded it from copyright infringement claims.

But the rappers' lawyers told the company that it hadn't sought permission to use the song in that way.

The Beasties' copyright-infringement lawsuit, filed in Oakland, California, had claimed:

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.

Terms of the settlement deal (PDF courtesy of Naomi Jane Gray) between the warring hip-hop stars and toy maker were kept secret. ®

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