Newton v. Diamond
388 F.3d 1189 (9th Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 545 U.S. 1114 (2005)
The Beastie Boys in Japan in 1992.
Photo: Masao Nakagami.
This case involves a dispute between James Newton, a jazz flutist, and The Beastie Boys. The case involved the practice known as "sampling", where parts of one song are taken and used in a new song. For an interesting look at the growth of sampling over the years, The History of Sampling (requires java) shows which present-day songs have sampled from other songs over the last fifty years.
If you'd like to do some sampling of your own (without running into legal trouble), the dmoz open directory project offers a large listing of sites that offer free audio samples for your use.
The Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch ("MCA") died in 2012.