The Beastie Boys have come out winning in the lawsuit that they filed against Monster Energy Drink. The lawsuit stems from a copyright infringement and false endorsement claim against the widely popular energy drink company for using one of their songs without a license in an online video.
The jury has awarded the group $1.7 million in damages, though they had originally asked for $2.5 million. While they came out as winners, Monster Energy Drink argue that they should owe the group no more than $125,000 for the case.
The Beastie Boy’s lawyer, Kevin Puvalowski said in his closing statement that the beverage company hoped to benefit from “how cool” his clients were without their permission. “They didn’t care if their employees were stealing from the Beastie Boys,” he said.
Reid Kahn, Monster’s lawyer, did though, acknowledge that the company has infringed on the group’s copyrights, but said that it was because an employee thought the company had the permission to use the music.
The video at the center of the lawsuit is one that centers around an annual snowboarding competition the company organizes and sponsors in Canada called “Ruckus in the Rockies.”
The video featured clips from the competition and an after party attended by DJs including Z-Trip who remixed Beastie Boys songs including “Sabotage” and “Make some Noise” which appeared in the video. It then concluded with a sentence saying “RIP MCA,” in honor of late Beastie member, Adam Yauch who sadly passed away after his battle with cancer, a day before the competition took place.
Once the damaged were award, Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) stated, “We’re happy. We just want to thank the jury.” At the time, an attorney for Monster had said that they will appeal the verdict.
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