Rappers the Beastie Boys are the latest in a line of high profile cases involving alleged copyright abuse after a judge awarded then $1.7m (£1.11m) for the unauthorised use of their music in a fizzy drinks ad.
The ruling in New York ends a case in which the two surviving members of the band made clear their staunch opposition to the use of their music in commercial endorsements.
Beverage maker Monster Energy, based in California, had admitted wrongly using Beastie Boys songs in a video that was online for five weeks, but insisted it should owe no more than 125,000 dollars (£74,400).
However, the judge disagreed, saying that Monster had committed willful copyright infringement involving five songs, although their most famous song (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) was not on the list, and chose to award 120,000 dollars for each of 10 copyright violations and also awarded an additional 500,000 dollars after finding that Monster used the bands’ persona without permission, suggesting a false endorsement of the drinks maker’s products.
Meanwhile, still on a musical note, a lawsuit claiming that Led Zeppelin’s famous Stairway to Heaven was stolen from an obscure song by the band Spirit has been filed, with the trust for Spirit’s late songwriter Randy California suing the surviving members of Led Zeppelin and their record company for copyright infringement.
Governments globally take a very serious view of the protection of intellectual copyright, as the creative industries bring in a huge amount of revenue every year, and the UK’s Minister for Intellectual Property, Lord Younger, warned recently that the enforcement of intellectual property here is going to get tougher, not easier, with time.