Beastie Boys Settle With GoldieBlox

In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for GoldieBlox, which makes a line of engineering toys for girls, noted the company will make a payment “based on a percentage of its revenues, to one or more charities selected by Beastie Boys that support science, technology, engineering and mathematics education for girls.”

As part of the settlement GoldieBlox issued an apology, which was posted on the company’s website Tuesday.

“We sincerely apologize for any negative impact our actions have had on the Beastie Boys. We never intended to cast the band in a negative light and we regret putting them in a position to defend themselves when they had done nothing wrong.

“As engineers and builders of intellectual property, we understand an artist’s desire to have his or her work treated with respect. We should have reached out to the band before using their music in the video.

“We know this is only one of the many mistakes we’re bound to make as we grow our business. The great thing about mistakes is how much you can learn from them. As trying as this experience was, we have learned a valuable lesson. From now on, we will secure the proper rights and permissions in advance of any promotions, and we advise any other young company to do the same.”

Goldieblox preemptively filed suit against the group in November seeking permission and claiming the video that featured girls singing about building spaceships and coding software was a parody to break down gender stereotypes for young girls.

The Beasties, who’ve refused to allow their songs to be used in any advertisements, countersued a month later but maintained that they supported the company’s goals.

“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,” Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond wrote at the time.