As of this morning, the Beastie Boys can put a gnarly three-year legal battle over samples used within their game-changing 1989 sophomore album Paul’s Boutique behind them. Today, Billboard reports that a New York judge threw out TufAmerica’s case against the pioneering hip-hop group due to lack of “an exclusive license to the copyrighted material.”
Under US District Judge Alison Nathan’s ruling, TufAmerica—a Washington DC record label that frequently sues artists over sampling within tracks—did not obtain the exclusive rights to the music of all three members of Trouble Funk, thus not truly having a true legal standing on their side.
This dismissal of TufAmerica’s suit, which was filed only one day before Adam “MCA” Yauch passed away in 2012, is a welcomed relief for Mike D and Ad-Rock who have been in and out of lawsuits about the proper usage of their music over the past few years.
