Beastie Boys : The Trouble with "Girls"
Oh, the wicked world of virtual marketing and well-orchestrated shitstorms: When news of the Beastie Boys threatening legal action against Californian start-up toymaker GoldieBlox for using the BB’s 1986, err, classic “Girls“ for a (rather well-made) commercial, the net and the social networks were quickly ablaze with enraged criticism of the band.
Reality, however, prives much more complicated: While the Beasties merely inquired why the company was using the “Girls“ tune for a commercial (with new lyrics, celebrating the female inventors and engineers of tomorrow), it was GoldieBlox going to court, filing for “injunction relief“ and a court decision to get “parody“ status for the commercial (over 8.2 million clicks on Youtube before it was put on “private“ status). While the whole unpleasant affair worked nicely in GoldenBlox’ favor with lots of free media exposure and a slot during the upcoming SuperBowl in the cards, it leaves a rather stale stench: For the Beastie Boys this was never about money but only about the late Adam Yauch’s wishes never to have his image or work used in commercials. (Souchak)
Reality, however, prives much more complicated: While the Beasties merely inquired why the company was using the “Girls“ tune for a commercial (with new lyrics, celebrating the female inventors and engineers of tomorrow), it was GoldieBlox going to court, filing for “injunction relief“ and a court decision to get “parody“ status for the commercial (over 8.2 million clicks on Youtube before it was put on “private“ status). While the whole unpleasant affair worked nicely in GoldenBlox’ favor with lots of free media exposure and a slot during the upcoming SuperBowl in the cards, it leaves a rather stale stench: For the Beastie Boys this was never about money but only about the late Adam Yauch’s wishes never to have his image or work used in commercials. (Souchak)