GoldieBlox vs The Beastie Boys

Well over 7 million people have seen the viral video ‘commercial’ for GoldieBlox, which features a group of young girls enthusiastically rigging contraptions and building. This all takes place over the course of a highly energetic reworking of the Beastie Boys classic song, ‘Girls.’
The original song features somewhat misogynistic, if not playful lyrics. “Girls, to do the dishes. girls, to clean up my room. girls, to do the laundry, Girls, and in the bathroom. girls, that’s all I really want is girls.”

The GoldieBlox version of the lyrics are: “Girls, to build the spaceship. Girls to code the new app. Girls to grow up knowing that they can engineer that. Girls, that’s all we really need is girls.”

Somewhat surprisingly, Oakland startup GoldieBlox, which began after raising $135,00 over their Kickstarter goal to launch the GodlieBlox product, initiated legal action when they got word that the Beastie Boys were not pleased with the use of their song and were questioning how it came to be used.
GodlieBlox claims that the song is a parody and, as such, is excluded from the parameters of copyright infringement.
Not at all surprisingly, the Beastie Boys released a statement addressing the issue and filed suit against GoldieBlox.

“Like many of the millions of people who have seen your toy commercial “GoldieBlox, Rube Goldberg & the Beastie Boys,” we were very impressed by the creativity and the message behind your ad.
We strongly support empowering young girls, breaking down gender stereotypes and igniting a passion for technology and engineering.
As creative as it is, make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads.
When we tried to simply ask how and why our song “Girls” had been used in your ad without our permission, YOU sued US.”

Use of the word ‘parody’ and how it’s interpreted are going to be critical in this case. It seems quite evident, though, that the intent was not to poke fun at the original track, a la ‘Weird’ Al Yankovic, but rather to rephrase a less than stellar message for and about girls with an empowering and encouraging one, all with the purpose of promoting and, ideally, selling a product. Though we at Thirty Roses are always in support of empowering and educating girls and teaching them about a world independent of princesses and damsels in distress, we’re also fans of going about things the proper way so as to adequately protect all parties involved.
It really is a great video with a great message, perhaps both sides will come to an agreement so it may still be used. If not, the women behind GoldieBlox are bright enough to come up with another promotional concept just as positive and fun.

If you haven’t yet seen the GoldieBlox video, definitely watch it!

And the classic track by the Beastie Boys: