In a victory for the Beastie Boys, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today declined to review an earlier decision which upheld a lower-court dismissal of a case brought by James Newton which asked that the Beasties pay licensing fees on both the recording and the underlying composition for a sample of his 1978 "Choir," which was used on Hello Nasty track Pass the Mic. The Beasties had already paid licensing fees for the recording, and the court ruled that:

[The] 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 infringement of Newton’s copyright.

Who knew that federal apellate court judges were so well versed in music theory? On the other hand, the reporter shows their complete lack of hip-hop awareness in their wire story:

The Beastie Boys helped spark the modern sampling trend in popular music with the 1989 album “Paul’s Boutique,” which incorporated bits of music from sources as diverse as Johnny Cash, Bob Marley and the Beatles to create new music.

Uh huh. The Beastie Boys, in 1989, on "Paul's Boutique," their least successful album (which SFist loves, regardless) was a "spark" for the "modern sampling trend." Oof. We won't get into the production mastery of Rick Rubin on License to Ill, which sampled Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith - and that's only an earlier Beastie Boys record. Can Reuters give Afrika Bambataa some love? We sure can! They do get credit for their promotion of Creative Commons licensing, and you can remix the track Now Get Busy to your hearts content by grabbing a copy from Wired Magazine's Rip. Sample. Mash. Share. CD.

Speaking of sampling heroes, the Beasties are currently touring their album To The 5 Boroughs with Bay Area DJ legend Mix Master Mike (who also recently came out with a new album), having recently played at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. Wonder what's going on around Toronto these days?