Viral GoldieBlox Video Ignites Legal Battle With Beastie Boys

Brands have been put on notice: You've got to fight, for your right, to go viral

Earlier this week, a toy company called GoldieBlox made an inspirational promotional video featuring a parody of the 1987 Beastie Boys hit "Girls." The YouTube video quickly became a colossal viral marketing success, with more than 7.2 million views since Sunday. On Wednesday, the term "GoldieBlox" was searched more than 100,000 times on Google

But now the stunt has ignited a budding legal battle with the Beastie Boys over the use of their song

The GoldieBlox video, embedded atop this post, features three girls taking unwanted — and stereotypically "girly" — toys to create a Rube Goldberg machine. In the background, the rather unsophisticated lyrics to "Girls" are replaced with messages of female empowerment and odes to science and engineering. It's become more than just a novelty item, however, set amid the larger conversation of how to get more girls involved in technology as a career path. Read more...