Beastie Boys sue Chili’s for using their song “Sabotage” in ads

The Beastie Boys will fight for their right to use their music as they please – the hip-hop and rock group is suing the owner of Chili’s for using their song “Sabotage” in social media ads.

According to a lawsuit filed in New York on Wednesday and reported by Reuters, the Beastie Boys’ Chili’s owners are accusing Brinker of copyright infringement and unfair competition over the use of the iconic group’s 1994 song “Sabotage” to promote the restaurant chain without their permission.

“The use of the sound recording, musical composition and video of ‘Sabotage’ was without permission; Plaintiffs are not licensing ‘Sabotage’ or their other intellectual property for third-party product advertising purposes, and deceased Beastie Boys member Adam Yauch included a provision in his will prohibiting such uses,” the suit states. (Yauch’s estate and the group’s surviving members, Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz, are all named as plaintiffs in the suit.)

The Beastie Boys’ lawyers and Brinker’s representatives did not immediately respond to Weekly entertainmentfor a comment on Thursday.

The Beastie Boys, who formed in 1981, released the song “Sabotage” as a single from their album “Ill Communication” in January 1994. Rolling Stone named the song one of the “500 greatest songs of all time” in 2004.

A video for the song, directed by Spike Jonze and viewed over 131 million times on YouTube, is both a homage to and a parody of 1970s crime series.

The lawsuit names both the song and the video, alleging: “One such video used, without Plaintiffs’ permission or consent, significant portions of the musical composition and sound recording of ‘Sabotage’ (the ‘Unauthorized Chili’s Video’). In addition, Brinker synchronized Plaintiffs’ musical composition and sound recording for ‘Sabotage’ with other footage in the Unauthorized Chili’s Video, in which three characters wearing obvious ’70s-style wigs, fake mustaches, and sunglasses intended to resemble the three members of the Beastie Boys performed scenes of ‘stealing ingredients from a Chili’s restaurant,’ interspersed with fictitious opening credits, in a manner obviously similar to, and intended to evoke in the minds of the public, scenes from Plaintiffs’ well-known official ‘Sabotage’ video.”

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The Beastie Boys are asking the court for at least $150,000 in damages, a permanent injunction prohibiting Brinker from using their music, and the removal of “the unauthorized Chili’s video from all locations where it has been stored and/or made available by or through Brinker or reposted by any third party, and the destruction of all copies of the unauthorized Chili’s video.”