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Legal
Beastie Boys sued for copyright infringement
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 9 May 2012
In a move that can probably be filed in the drawer marked ‘poor timing’, it has emerged that The Beastie Boys were hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit on 3 May, the day before the band’s Adam Yauch died. It’s all the more unfortunate given that the litigation relates not to recent Beastie Boys output, but to tracks on the rap trio’s first two long players in 1986 and 1989.
The lawsuit, filed by the TufAmerica record label, related to two songs on the band’s debut album, ‘Licensed To Ill’, and two more on the follow-up, ‘Paul’s Boutique’. The company claims that the group illegally sampled two Trouble Funk songs – ‘Say What’ and ‘Drop The Bomb’ – on said tracks.
That it has taken over 20 years to pursue this litigation is partly linked to the fact Tuf America only gained control of the copyrights in Trouble Funk’s catalogue in 1999, the additional ten year wait seemingly being down to the fact it’s only recently that the label noticed the alleged infringements.
See the full lawsuit here, courtesy of All Hip Hop.
