Sampling is the name given to the practice in which recording artists incorporate snippets of other songs into their own work.
The 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has declined to reconsider its decision last year allowing the group to use a six-second segment of music from jazz flutist James Newton's 1978 composition Choir.
A three-judge panel of the court held in 2003 that the band had abided by copyright protections by paying a license fee for a sample of Newton's recording.
It said therefore the band did not have to pay an additional fee to license the underlying composition.
That finding upheld a lower court dismissal of the case in favour of the Beastie Boys.
The 9th Circuit has now refused to reconsider its ruling before a larger 11-judge panel.
The Beastie Boys used the sample in their song Pass the Mic on their 1992 album Check Your Head.
Representatives for Newton and the Beastie Boys are not immediately available for comment.
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.
Sampling has since become a staple of many artists, especially in the rap and hip-hop genres.
The Beastie Boys have also emerged as leading advocates of a new approach to licensing known as the Creative Commons, in which artists record songs that listeners are invited to "rip, sample, mash and share" over file-sharing online networks like Kazaa or borrow to create their own compositions.
Is that really where sampiung started, @ Paul's Boutique? I wouldn't have thought so....and since Music piracy 'does hit CD sales', where does that leave those that love their copyright? Makes this whole argument on branding by James Surowiecki a whole lot more interesting...
