FWIW, NPR’s On The Media has a post up about this. Last word: “Copyright doesn’t give you the right to control criticism of your work or your message.”
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Word. I didn’t reason out the logic in my above comment, but I meant to convey exactly what you wrote.
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That’s not what BB are asking for though, is it?
They seem to support the message, but don’t want it linked to a commercial enterprise.
Anyway isn’t Licensed to Ill satire.
The original girls is a dig at beer chugging misogyny anyway.
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And most people miss that most of License to Ill, especially “Girls”, is satire.
EDIT:
Yeah. I mean, the only way for the remaining Beastie Boys to have come out smelling like roses would have been to quietly sit there and let GoldieBlox do it. I mean…I don’t see this as being much different than beating up on 30-year-old Japanese video games, with the difference being that the sexism in Japanese games wasn’t satirical in nature, and this “Girls” parody is actually pretty darn funny. Having said that, it’s also an apt comparison because the song is 26 years old. They’re still beat up as horrible misogynists because nobody freakin’ “got it” and everybody ignored their apologetic tone in the decades to come. People have used this incident as an excuse to dredge up their bad behavior, and perceived bad behavior, from nearly three decares ago.
We’ll see what happened. I’m guessing the GoldieBlox people decided to take the defensive as soon as the question came up, or maybe the Beasties asked their lawyers, and the lawyers said “yep” and took immediate action, or some variation on one of those.
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Brought to you by Carnival Cruises, Best Buy, and Chevy.
If your income is derived from advertising, you’re “in advertising”. I could have fooled myself when I was working in newspapers and said that I wasn’t, but I saw the numbers. I was in advertising.
Way to tell Boing Boing to kill themselves.
I’m sure this early feminist work of Beastie Boys was just using juxtaposition at the time to draw attention to the stark contrast of the rock/rap lifestyle. I mean, sure it might sound more like misogyny, but how dare feminists object to clear lyrics like this?
I hope she’ll say
“Hey me and you should hit the hay”
I aksed her out she said, “No way!”
I shoulda probably guessed her gay
Girls, to do the dishes
Girls, to clean up my room
Girls, to do the laundry
Girls, and in the bathroom
I ought to whip out my
They deserve unending royalties and praise for their contribution to society.
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Shouldn’t you be terrorizing a bridge somewhere?
EDIT: Come to think of it, you illustrated what they were doing, just so perfectly. If you weren’t trolling and you totally meant it…wow, because it read like the kind of deep trolling they were doing on License to Ill. Because if you weren’t, that assumes you think they really thought people should fight for their right to party…
And I’m not saying it was all trolling. I have a feeling they had strippers on stage because they were young jerks having fun. But several things on there were poking fun at the rest of hip-hop, rock, and metal (No Sleep Till Brooklyn was a jab at metal, the title a parody of Motorhead and backed by Slayer’s Kerry King.)
Or to hit on another point I made in my last comment: the amount of time that’s passed. I was 11 years old when that album came out. I’m 38. I’ve changed a little since I was 11. How about you? Are you the same person you were when you were 11? We could ask Adam Yauch if he’s changed, but he’s dead.
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I think one of the commenters over at Popehat has the best potential argument: that there is a difference between “commercial use” and use in a “commercial advertisement” (which is colloquially shortened to “commercial”, but this doesn’t make the meaning of the term “commercial” the same in both instances). Concerning commercial use, fair use and parodies covers artistic or journalistic works that can be sold as commercial items or part of a commercial item. But a commercial advertisement does not fall under this rubric.
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Similarly, using someone else’s work as a parody does not protect you from criticism. Filing a lawsuit against someone when they ask why you didn’t consult them before using your work also doesn’t protect you from criticism. I’ll wait to see the letter that GoldieBlox doesnt’ seem to want to produce before I judge the intentions of the Beastie Boys.
For now I’m guessing that GoldieBlox just hit upon the greatest marketing campaign of all time: Convince everyone the Beastie Boys are suing you.
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Really? Pressuring an artist into a decision without any intention of paying them is a pretty douche move.
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More generically, convince people you’re a victim.
Now, before people jump on me, I think it’s great that a kid is making a game instead of just playing games. But…I kinda think that if my kid decided to make a game, I’d be having to scrounge for the money myself, and that she wouldn’t get much exposure, not least because I come from a place on the low end of U.S. income and not the tippy-top like her…unless I posted something about it to 4chan and used the trollies’ hateful responses as marketing fuel.
Other Beastie Boys lyrics …
Sure Shot:
I want to say a little something that’s long overdue
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends
I want to offer my love and respect to the end
Song for the Man:
What makes you feel
And why you gotta be
Like you got the right
To look her up and down
What makes this world
So sick and evil
I know you don’t know
What makes you feel
Like you got whip appeal
Who made you the judge an jury
Ain’t you never heard of privacy
What makes this world
So sick and evil
You figure it out
Also, the acceptance speech at the MTV music awards (time starts when Adam Horovitz starts talking):
One of the comments provides a transcript:
HELLO! OK, uh, can everybody hear? You can hear? You can all hear? OK……like to thank MTV……OK, check it out! Like to thank MTV for giving us the opportunity to be in a room with all these musicians that are here tonight. Especially for giving us the microphone because there’s something that I really wanna talk about, tonight, while I have the time.
I read in the news and heard from my friends all about the sexual assaults and the rapes that went down at Woodstock ’99. It made me feel really sad and angry. OK? (pauses) Are you all there? (applause) OK. You all remember that? Woodstock? What happened? Well I was thinking why should I just feel MAD about it and not DO anything about it? And I think we CAN do something about it, as musicians. Now I’m talking to ALL the musicians here ….
(Diana Ross interrupts him; hands him the trophy and says “this is for you baby”.) (Adrock continues) Thank you Diana Ross. ALL the musicians here: I think we can talk to the promoters and make sure that they’re doing something about the safety of the all the girls and the women that come to our shows. (applause) I think we can talk and work with the security people to make sure they know and understand about sexual harassment and rape and they know how to handle these situations, you know what I’m saying? RESPECTFULLY. (more applause)
Anyways! I wanna dedicate this award to everybody out there that’s down to make change happen. Thanks!
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I’m glad Goldieblox have overplayed their hand here and made the situation clear to anyone who pays it due consideration.
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I’m not sure if you’re choosing to misunderstand me or where we went wrong here. All I’m saying is: if your primary motive is to make money, it’s no longer a parody (legally speaking), it’s an ad. Satire lies in the realm of art, of commentary, of criticism, of adding to our cultural conversation. Their primary purpose is to enrich our collective bank of ideas. Ads lie in the realm of selling you shit. Their primary purpose is to enrich someone’s wallet. Sure, people try to blur the line all the time blah blah blah, but really, there’s a pretty clear, basic difference, especially in this case. These guys made an ad. It uses the parodic genre / form / structure to do so, but they created an ad, not a work of satire. The Beastie Boys have every right to deny them the use of their song.
I’m not really sure what your examples are illustrating, in regards to this argument. [quote=“smartr, post:70, topic:15007”]
They deserve unending royalties and praise for their contribution to society.
[/quote]
They were punk-ass kids being wise-asses. Was is misogyny? Was it irony? Who cares? Laugh or get offended, it really has nothing to do with the case at hand.
That is some seriously deep ret-conning you’re doing there.
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/570179/beastie-boy-apologizes-past-lyrics.jhtml
Everything I’ve read suggests that Licensed to Ill was nothing more than what it appeared to be on the surface. Fortunately the Beasties all grew up and got some serious consciousness-raising in the intervening years.
Aha, however upthread someone makes the point that the original ‘girls’ song was in fact parody of sorts (I can’t confirm this, but assuming it’s true…) - doesn’t that therefore nullify any claims of parody as the message is in fact the same, albeit more on the nose?
Did I really miss all these comments or can you see something I can’t?
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I know one shouldn’t speak ill of the Beastie Boys, but that first album seemed very much aimed at the teenage frat boy market. Yes, it might have been a send up of rap music at the time, but did the drunken teenagers know it.
Yeah, I’m with the Beastie Boys on this one. No matter how worthy the ‘cause’, they’re still hawking toys, and MCA clearly stated in his will that his music wasn’t to be used for advertising.
so having a tooth ache makes you a dentist? Great logic there!
