IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT NEWS: Construction toy company aimed at girls claims its parody of Beastie Boys “Girls” song is fair use, (Nov 25, 2013)

By Cheryl Beise, J.D.

Oakland-based toy company GoldieBox, Inc. has filed suit against the Beastie Boys hip hop group and music recording companies, seeking a declaration that the company’s promotional video using the tune of the Beastie Boys’ song “Girls,” but with different lyrics, constitutes a noninfringing fair use.

GoldieBlox is a toy company founded upon the principle of breaking down gender stereotypes by offering engineering and construction toys specifically targeted to girls. To introduce its toys to the public, GoldieBlox created a set of promotional videos depicting girls pursuing so-called “nontraditional” activities.

The video at issue in the suit—the “GoldieBlox Girls Parody Video”—depicts three girls rejecting stereotypical play as princesses with tiaras, and instead creating a complex Rube Goldberg mechanism throughout multiple rooms and the yard of one of their homes.

“In the lyrics of the Beastie Boys’ song entitled Girls, girls are limited (at best) to household chores, and are presented as useful only to the extent they fulfill the wishes of the male subjects,” the complaint states. GoldieBlox created the GoldieBlox Girls Parody Video specifically to comment on the Beastie Boys song by revising the lyrics to celebrate the many capabilities of girls, exactly the opposite of the message of the original song. The complaint contains a chart comparing the lyrics of “Girls” with the video’s parody lyrics.

The GoldieBlox Girls Parody Video has gone viral on the Internet, and has been recognized by the press and the public as a parody and criticism of the original song, the complaint adds.

GoldieBlox filed the complaint after lawyers for the Beastie Boys threatened to sue the company, claiming that the GoldieBlox Girls Parody Video is copyright infringement, not fair use. GoldieBlox is seeking a declaratory judgment that its parody video does not infringe any copyrights held by defendants and is protected by the fair use doctrine. GoldieBlox also is requesting an injunction enjoining the defendants from attempting to enforce its copyright in “Girls,” including through the use of Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notices or otherwise.

The complaint in GoldieBlox, Inc. v. Island Def Jam Music Group was filed on November 21, 2013 in the federal district court in San Francisco. The defendants named in the complaint are the Beastie Boys musical group, Brooklyn Dust Music, “Girls” song authors Rick Rubin and Adam Horovitz, Island Def Jam Music Group, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc., Sony/ATV Music Publishing Group LLC, and Universal Music Publishing, Inc.

The case is No. 3:13-cv-05428.

Attorneys: Annette L. Hurst (Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP) for GoldieBlox, Inc.

Companies: GoldieBlox, Inc.; Island Def Jam Music Group; Brooklyn Dust Music; the Beastie Boys; Sony/ATV Music Publishing Group LLC; Universal Music Publishing, Inc

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