Limited Permanent Injunction Entered In Beastie Boys v. Monster Case

Beastie Boys v. Monster Energy, No. 12-cv-06065 (S.D.N.Y. filed 02/20/15) [Doc. 201].

After prevailing at trial, the Court granted the Beastie Boys' motion for a permanent injunction, but agreed with Monster that the injunction "must be tightly limited to cover only the infringing video."  The Beastie Boys had sought to broadly enjoin Monster from using the Beastie Boys' music, voices, names, and trademarks for any advertising or trade-related purpose, whereas Monster argued that, if the Court decided to issue a permanent injunction at all, that relief should be limited to the video at issue in the case.  The Court applied the traditional four-factor test in exercising its equitable discretion to grant such relief, and found that "In the Court's view, the injunction the Beastie Boys propose is highly overbroad. It would sweep well beyond the single video at issue in this lawsuit to expansively ban a host of hypothetical future acts that the Beastie Boys cast as infringement."