MELISSA BLOCK, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.  I'm Melissa Block.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Today, the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear this      sequence of notes.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: That's from a 1978 recording for flute called "Choir" by jazz      musician James Newton.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: The whole piece is four and a half minutes long.  In 1992, that      small excerpt was sampled by the hip-hop group the Beastie Boys.</s>BEASTIE BOYS: (Rapping) Goodness gracious.  If you can do it, I'm      dealing and it's a musical masterpiece, do what I'm dealing with, and      that's cool at least.  What's running...</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: The Beastie Boys used the three-note progression to open their      song "Pass the Mic" and repeated it 39 more times under the rest of the      tune.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: The group paid a record company for the use of the 10-second      recording by Newton, but Newton sued the Beastie Boys, alleging copyright      infringement.  He said they should have also paid him as the composer.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: The Beastie Boys argued they had not used a composition but a      sound.</s>ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Well, the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals      dismissed the lawsuit.  The court decided the three notes were not      distinctive enough to be claimed by Newton.</s>MELISSA BLOCK, host: Today, the Supreme Court shut the door on James Newton's lawsuit      to be compensated by the Beastie Boys for their use of his song "Choir."
The Supreme Court refuses to consider whether a 1992 Beastie Boys song infringed on the copyright of a recording by jazz flutist James Newton. He had contended that the group's song "Pass the Mic" sampled his composition "Choir" from 1978.