• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, November 27, 2013

The GoldieBlox-Beastie Boys flare-up this week sparked much blogosphere debate about whether companies have the right to post ads that include song parodies. But the questions raised by GoldieBlox's viral ad are likely to remain unanswered, at least for now, because the toy company pulled down the clip last night.

The GoldieBlox execs posted a letter to the Beastie Boys, explaining the decision to remove the clip. “We don’t want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans,” GoldieBlox writes.

“When we made our parody version of your song, ‘Girls’, we did it with the best of intentions. We wanted to take a song we weren’t too proud of, and transform it into a powerful anthem for girls...We want you to know that when we posted the video, we were completely unaware that the late, great Adam Yauch had requested in his will that the Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising. Although we believe our parody video falls under fair use, we would like to respect his wishes and yours.”

The dispute centered on a GoldieBlox ad, posted to YouTube, that uses music from the Beastie Boys' song “Girls,” but with new lyrics. For instance, GoldieBlox replaced the lines “Girls to do the dishes/Girls to clean up my room”, with “Girls build a spaceship/Girls code the new app.”

The toy company went to court last week to seek a declaratory judgment that the clip is protected by fair use principles. GoldieBlox says it did so after Beastie Boys' lawyers called with “threats that we took very seriously.”

The Beastie Boys responded in an open letter that it doesn't allow the group's songs to be used in ads. “As creative as it is, make no mistake, your video is an advertisement that is designed to sell a product, and long ago, we made a conscious decision not to permit our music and/or name to be used in product ads. When we tried to simply ask how and why our song ‘Girls’ had been used in your ad without our permission, YOU sued US,” the group's surviving members, Mike D and Ad-Rock, write.  Group member Adam (“MCA”) Yauch, who died last year, felt so strongly about the issue that his will specifies that Beastie Boys' songs can't be used in ads.

Industry observers had strong opinions on both sides of the issue. The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation called the clip a “classic example of growing the cultural commons by remaking existing cultural works to create new insights and expression.”

But others said the fair use argument would be stronger if the clip wasn't an ad. “They used the music for an extended period of time in an advertisement, without paying for it,” Santa Clara University law professor Eric Goldman told MediaPost. “You can't do that.”