06 Feb Beastie Boys Demand Legal Fees after Beating Monster Energy

The guys in hip hop group The Beastie Boys are mad. It seems that Monster Energy, the billion dollar drink company, stole four of their songs in an online promotional video for the energy drinks. Monster, which talks about pride in its “gorilla marketing,” fought the case even though most feel it was pretty obvious what they did. Their lawyers, for example, claimed the Boys did not own the copyrights to their songs, forcing the band to hire experts. Monster eventually admitted they did indeed infringe on the Boys’ copyright. In the end a $1.7 million judgment was entered against Monster.

Now the Beastie Boys feel they are also entitled to their legal fees because of claimed egregious behavior by Monster’s lawyers. They have recently made that motion and we shall see what happens. They are asking for an additional $2.4 million in legal fees on top of their judgment. I guess it was one of those cases where it was worth legal fees in excess of recovery to make clear that infringement cannot be tolerated. The Boys were one of the early hip hop groups in the 1980s. They have always vowed to never use their music in advertising.

What do you think??