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The Beastie Boys were recently entangled in one of the more bizarre legal stories this year but it looks like this one will have a civil ending.

To backtrack, a San Francisco-based toy company by the name of GoldieBlox used a remade version of the Beastie’s 1986 hit, “Girls” as the theme for one of their ads. Usually the extra income would delight a rap act, especially an older one like The Beastie Boys. However, there were stipulating factors that made the sampling not so cool.

For starters, GoldieBlox never received proper permission for usage of the song in any format. And had they reached out to the surviving members of the multi-platinum group, they would have discovered that it was the late Adam “MCA” Yauch’s dying wish that their songs be prohibited from advertisement placements.

GoldieBlox took a preemptive strike and sued Adam Horovitz and Michael Diamond for rights to use the song. Puzzled, the group barked back with an open statement on November 25.

It seems that cooler heads have prevailed before the situation could get any uglier. In a new open statement from the toymaker, its founder denied knowledge of the group’s stance on licensing their music and decided to remove it from their commercial.

Reports The New York Times:

GoldieBlox and its founder, Debbie Sterling, said in their own open letter that they were unaware the band did not allow its songs to be used in advertisements, a point that was specified in the will of Adam Yauch, a founding member of the Beastie Boys who died last year.

“Although we believe our parody video falls under fair use,” GoldieBlox said in its letter, “we would like to respect his wishes and yours.”

“Since actions speak louder than words, we have already removed the song from our video,” the letter continued. “In addition, we are ready to stop the lawsuit as long as this means we will no longer be under threat from your legal team.”

“We don’t want to spend our time fighting legal battles,” GoldieBlox concluded. “We want to inspire the next generation. We want to be good role models. And we want to be your friends.”

Now that the issue is resolved, it seems like GoldieBlox has some toys to sell. Christmas is but a month away.

Photo: Laura Blake/McIntosh