The Beastie Boys are suing the owner of Chilis over allegations that the restaurant chain used the rap trio’s iconic 1994 song “Sabotage” in a social media advertisement without permission. In a lawsuit filed Wednesday (July 10) in Manhattan federal court, the hip-hop legends accused Brinker International of infringing their copyrights by using the song without a license — an especially serious allegation from a trio that famously doesn’t allow its music to appear in ads. “Use of the ‘Sabotage’ sound recording, music composition and video was all without permission,” the group’s attorneys write.
“The plaintiffs do not license ‘Sabotage’ or any of 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 Beastie Boys says the Chilis ad in question featured three men in “70s-style” wigs, fake mustaches, and sunglasses carrying out a “robbery” of food ingredients from a Chilis. The group says it clearly “intended to evoke” the music video to “Sabotage,” a parody of 1970s “crime drama” television programs that featured Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz , Michael “Mike D” Diamond and the late Adam “MCA” Yauch in similar attire.
The band’s lawyers say using the song was bad enough, but that by recreating a video that featured “unauthorized video impersonations of Diamond, Horovitz and Yauch, Brinkers als.
