A few months ago I posted about a controversial advertisement created by girl-tech startup company GoldieBlox. They posted a really great ad on YouTube which was unfortunately comprised of a parodied version of The Beastie Boys’ classic “Girls”. After all of the controversy it looks like GoldieBlox has swapped the music in a revised version of the ad.  Unfortunately I don’t have the original ad to share so if you haven’t seen it just play “Girls” over it but replace the lyrics with lyrics like the below.

You can read more about the legal wrangling on BusinessWeek.com

My favorite quite from this article:

“We’re not going to argue the merits of the cases here. It’s complicated when, on one side, there are the beloved Beastie Boys, including the estate of Adam “MCA” Yauch, who died last year of cancer and whose will prohibits use of his music in advertising.  “

Regardless of fair and whatever the song was being used to advertise I believe there are some basic creative principles that were being ignored by GoldieBlox. They could have asked for permission. But I guess the saying goes “Better to ask forgiveness than seek permission…” (??)