The Beastie Boys are suing Brinker International, the company that owns Chili’s Grill and Bar, alleging that the restaurant chain used their 1994 hit “Sabotage” in a social media advert that also parodied the song’s famous Spike Jonze-directed video.
The lawsuit was filed in New York on Wednesday (July 10), on behalf of Adam Horovitz ‘Ad Rock’, Mike ‘Mike D’ Diamond and the estate of Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, who died in 2012.
In the complaint, seen by The Independent, the Beastie Boys’s lawyers argue that Brinker “produced, sponsored, and encouraged the creation and posting on social media of videos to promote Brinker’s ‘Chili’s’ restaurants that included musical compositions and sound recordings that were used without the permission of the rights owners.”
One such video used the song “Sabotage” and featured “three characters wearing obvious 70s-style wigs, fake mustaches, and sunglasses who were intended to evoke the three members of Beastie Boys performed scenes depicting them ‘robbing’ ingredients from a Chili’s restaurant.”
The band argue that the video was clearly meant to evoke the popular “Sabotage” video, and falsely implied that they endorse the restaurant chain.
As the suit makes clear, the use of “Sabotage” was unauthorized, as the band “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.”
Beastie Boys are seeking $150,000 in damages, as well as asking Brinker to take down the offending commercials. They are also seeking an order to prevent Brinker from using their work in the future.
Back in 2015, Beastie Boys won a significant payout after a jury decided against Monster Beverage Corp in a similar case of unauthorized music usage. They were awarded $668,000 in legal fees on top of a $1.7m payout.
The band agreed to licence one of their songs for the first time ever in a 2020 TV advertisement that supported Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
That commercial used “Sabotage” as part of the Democratic candidate’s campaign to highlight the effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on the live music industry.
A Biden campaign spokesperson said at the time that the Beastie Boys, who have “never licensed music for an ad until now,” agreed to the use of “Sabotage” due to “the importance of the election.”
The advert, which was set in Michigan, aired on national TV in the US a day after Trump held a rally in the swing state.