The Beastie Boys are fast becoming the most successful courtroom specialists in music. Having last year won their case for copyright infringement against Monster energy drinks, they have now seen off a case against them for unlicensed sampling of the Washington DC go-go band Trouble Funk.
The case, filed the day before Yauch died in May 2012, was brought by a company called Tuf America, and claimed the Beastie Boys had sampled several Trouble Funk songs on tracks from their albums Licensed to Ill and Paul’s Boutique.
However, US district judge Alison Nathan ruled that whether or not the samples were used legitimately, Tuf America did not have the right to bring a case because it did not have an exclusive licence to the Trouble Funk tracks in question.
To gain an exclusive licence, the company would have had to have made a deal with the three principal members of Trouble Funk — Robert Reed, Tony Fisher and James Avery — to administer their copyrights. However, when Tuf America signed up Trouble Funk in 1999, it did deals with only Reed and Fisher.
“Therefore, without the third co-owner, Robert Reed and Fisher could at best convey a non-exclusive licence to TufAmerica,” Judge Nathan said.
A 2012 agreement with Avery did not alter matters, she said, granting only the “bare right to sue”.
