Oh, those Boys again: Beastly about ‘Girls?’
When two idealistic interests clash — artists’ wishing to protect their creations from commercial exploitation vs. advocates desiring to increase the now fractional representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields — where does the law come down? To those concerned about music and copyright, a recent case calls into question the bounds of owners’ rights. It’s all about a recent legal scuffle between the Beastie Boys and toy company GoldieBlox over a parody of the lads’ hit Girls in a television commercial. It has created quite the buzz within the blogosphere, because the toy company promotes products that bust sexist stereotypes to encourage girls to consider interests in STEM endeavors. But late last month, the Beastie Boys shared an open letter with the New York Times asserting that they would not allow their music to be used in product advertisements. Based on their statements, the hip-hop group may be a bit off-beat to the tune of copyright control and ownership. Sure, copyright holders generally have exclusive rights to control the use of their work – but that list is short. Copyright owners can often be restricted by several limitations – the fair use doctrine, the substantial similarity test, the de minimis doctrine, and whether the work in question is actually an original work of authorship, just to name a few. GoldieBlox would seem to hold...
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