Friday, July 26, 2013

Dope Little Lawsuit

You can always spot hardcore fans of the Beastie Boys because they know all rarities and oddball joints like "Dope Little Song" which was released on "Ill Communication" but only in Japan, and as the B-side to the Sabotage/Get It Together single.



I would bet everything I own that The Hon. Paul A. Engelmayer is not familiar with "Dope Little Song." Judge Engelmayer is a District Judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. According to his Wikipedia page, he graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. He then clerked for the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and followed that up with a SCOTUS clerkship for Justice Thurgood Marshall. He went on to be an AUSA and an assistant to the Solicitor General. Eventually he headed up the New York office of a fancy law firm, and was nominated to SDNY by President Obama in 2011. The Senate approved his nomination 98-0.

In legal circles, this is about as prestigious as a resume can get. The closest comparable is Chief Justice John Roberts who slightly trumps Judge Engelmayer because he was Principal Deputy Solicitor General at one point and his first bench assignment was an appellate court. But don't be surprised if someday you see Judge Engelmayer's name on short lists for higher posts. Hopefully these posts will not involve slang literacy.

I say this because Judge Engelmayer is assigned to the case of Beastie Boys v. Monster Energy Corp. The complaint is interesting for a few reasons, the most charming of which is the discovery that the Beastie Boys operate as a New York Partnership:


I use the word charming because a partnership in New York does not require any special filings with the state or even a contract between the partners. A partnership is simply two or more persons carrying on as co-owners of a business for profit. The partners owe each other a duty of loyalty. Of course there are ways to formalize a partnership or to limit liability, but these three bad brothers you know so well didn't do that. Trust me, I looked. Instead, they've been carrying on together as partners for over 30 years essentially without a net, just trusting each other and being loyal. We should all be so lucky.

But I digress. The Beasties sued Monster Beverage for copyright infringement because Monster used various Beasties songs to make a promotional video for their "Ruckus in the Rockies 2012" event. Monster then sued (natch) a DJ named Zack Sciacca, stage-named Z-Trip. Apparently, Monster used remixes available on Z-Trip's website to make the promotional video with Z-Trip's permission:


U-Tube!! Ha! Also "ha!" worthy: Monster asserts the defense that "Hey, we thought it was ok to bust the Beasties' loops, Z-Trip said it was dope."

Honestly. That's what they told Judge Engelmayer. More specifically, they told Judge Englemayer that "Mr. Sciacca said 'you can use the music on my website.' That was a separate contract, [then Monster asked] do you approve? And he wrote back, 'it's dope.'"

At which point the learned judge said "It's dope?"

Z-Trip's lawyer explained “It’s dope means it’s good. He says, ‘well they showed me this video and yeah, it looks good. They say ‘oh, that gives us permission to use all this music.' But there’s no contract between my client and the Beastie Boys.”

To which Judge Engelmayer replied, “I take it on a summary judgment motion that I have to treat ‘dope’ in the light most favorable to your client." I'm not sure if His Honor realized how funny that quip is. You probably don't either, particularly if you didn't take civil procedure. But trust me when I say it's a hoot.

Anyway, it goes without saying that it's really hard to win a case when the judge doesn't understand what you're saying. As the Beastie Boys would likely tell Monster's attorneys, don't play no game that you can't win.


23 comments:

  1. it is long past time that gtb establish a corporate governance structure. we've got substantial assets in the form of intellectual property and one slightly used digital recording device.

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  2. I suggest we organize as a Master Limited Partnership. Only problem is that 90% of our cash flow would have to come from a commodity or natural resource of some sort. Maybe we can sell the methane that beer drinking, "gassy & bloated" Dave creates. Then we can IPO this baby and sell it off to sucker retail investors. With the proceeds of the IPO and partnership distributions we can quit our jobs and build Gheorghe:TheCompound in the Cayman Islands, which will be helpful when the SEC comes looking for us after our over leveraged MLP tanks.

    Z-man, can you draft the S-1?

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  3. Since when am I the GTB associate?

    Today's NY Post: Same Old Schlong and Dance.

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  4. When the SEC comes looking for us we can just get the SEC! SEC! chant going. I'm sure they'll be cool after that. Though I'm still unclear why the Southeastern Conference is concerned with G:TB.

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  5. It has to do with the S-1Ws Mark.

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  6. "The story of how 3 college friends (and 7 other guys) formed Gheorghe: The Master Limited Partnership (G:TMLP) is a long an interesting one. And here it is. It all started with the filing of Form S-1W....."

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  7. Terminator X's S1Ws?

    It's fun to sing the title of this post like you're singing Silly Little Love Song.

    Dopey Little La-aw-suit, Dopey Little LA-AW-suit. Now you try it.

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  8. And to correct Zman, it was the NY Daily News as the surprise tabloid winner. Their tremendous Schlong title beat the Post's feeble (relative to their own standards) "Hard Numbers" cover.

    But to be fair, the Post did show the booty shot of Sydney Leathers. And it's quite a booty.

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  9. Booty -- that's what it is.

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  10. Wait, SWV is involved in this? I'm confused again. My wife will be really excited though.

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  11. mark, given this comment thread, im bumping your post to later in the afternoon

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  12. Good decision. SWV approved.

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  13. I think you can guess when your post will go up.

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  14. Are we including th Bomb Squad? The PE version, not the 88' NY Knicks.

    That said, Trent Tucker and Johnny Newman would be a good addition to the G:TB family.

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  15. Sistah Soulja with Voices?

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  16. Trent Tucker has his own rule so he's included.

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  17. Johnny Newman wore low tops playing in the NBA when that was unheard of. As someone who's been playing basketball in low tops since high school, I'm including him.

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  18. Evil Kenievel is in - that's a no-brainer. But Dr. Evil? No. He makes me laugh. So he's out.

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  19. can we form a dope gang? with hazing?

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  20. On the topic of Terminator X, here's a walk down memory lane. I loved this song.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHBwwdegvSc&list=PLKZZz_TR_dZEi-QMQbvDNu8ESf1fjf8YK

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  21. can we exclude grown up Tommy Chong from this dope gang? now he's just a plain dope

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  22. Whoa whoa whoa, you listened to Terminator X in the Valley of the Jeep Beats?! That was my joint! How did this never come up before?

    We should include Christopher Merloni because he was on SVU, which is kinda like SWV, and because he was on True Blood.

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