Never Mind the Lawyers, GoldieBlox Won Big in Beastie Boys Fight

If the message was female empowerment, then GoldieBlox made its point. The startup, which aims to teach little girls that they can be engineers and build cool stuff, lost the battle but won the war in its fight with the Beastie Boys

A recap: GoldieBlox released a video last week featuring a Rube Goldberg contraption built by girls. The soundtrack was a remake of the Beastie Boys' "Girls" that replaced the song's original misogynistic lyrics. (Sample: "Girls — to do the dishes" was changed to "Girls — to build the spaceship.")

Though the Beasties liked the message of the ad, they had made a prior commitment to not let their songs be used in advertising. It's unclear whether the GoldieBlox parody falls under terms of fair use. Retreating from a legal fight, GoldieBlox pulled the song from the ad late Wednesday and subbed in an instrumental track. It also wrote a letter of apology to the Beasties Read more...