Beastie Boys biography
Their 1989 album Paul's Boutique included the similarly-themed tracks "Car Thief," "Looking Down the Barrel of a Gun" and "High Plains Drifter."
Beastie Boys have had four albums reach the top of the Billboard album charts (Licensed to Ill, Ill Communication, Hello Nasty and To The 5 Boroughs) since 1986. In the November 2004 issue, Rolling Stone named "Sabotage" the 475th song on their [http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/11028260/the_rs_500_greatest_songs_of_all_time/5 500 Greatest Songs of All Time] list.
In their April 2005 issue, Rolling Stone ranked them #77 on their list of the [http://www.rollingstone.com/news/coverstory/the_immortals 100 Greatest Artists of All Time]. On September 27, 2007, it was announced that Beastie Boys were one of the nine nominees for the 2008 [[Rock and Roll Hall of Fame]] Inductions.
A controversial concert in [[Columbus, Georgia]] in 1987 led to the passage of a lewdness ordinance in that city. [[Sal Governale]], a comedian on the staff of [[The Howard Stern Show]], indicated on air on July 25, 2007, that he was the president of the Beastie Boys fan club in the 1980s on the [[Prodigy (ISP)|Prodigy]] computer network.
Two of their songs, "It's the New Style" and "Time to Get Ill", were sampled by [[The Prodigy]] in the [[The Dirtchamber Sessions Volume One]] in 1999.
Sampling lawsuit
In 2003, Beastie Boys were involved in the landmark [[sampling (music)|sampling]] decision,
Newton v. Diamond. In that case, a federal judge ruled that the band was not liable for sampling [[James Newton]]'s "Choir" in their track, "Pass the Mic." The sample used is the six-second flute stab. In short, the Beasties cleared the sample but obtained only the rights to use the sound recording and not the composition rights to the song "Choir." In the decision, the judge found that "when viewed in relation to Newton's composition as a whole, the sampled portion is neither quantitatively nor qualitatively significant... Because Beastie Boys' use of the sound recording was authorized, the sole basis of Newton's infringement action is his remaining copyright interest in the 'Choir' composition. We hold today that Beastie Boys' use of a brief segment of that composition, consisting of three notes separated by a half-step over a background C note, is not sufficient to sustain a claim for copyright infringement."
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