Beastie Boys have received a letter from a toy company which has backed down after threatening to sue them.

The two surviving members of the group - Mike Diamond, aka Mike D and Adam Horovitz, aka Ad-Rock - asked GoldieBlox why they hadn't got permission to use their song "Girls" in an advert. But soon after the company contacted their lawyers and tried to sue the band.

They have now sent an open letter to the musicians which reads, "We don't want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans. Our hearts sank last week when your lawyers called us with threats that we took very seriously. As a small company, we had no choice but to stand up for ourselves. We did so sincerely hoping we could come to a peaceful settlement with you."

They have now removed the parody version of the song, which took the misogynistic lyrics and replaced them with empowered lines about females taking part in science and engineering industries, from the advert and are willing to stop the lawsuit. The company wrote that they were unaware that the late Adam Yauch had requested in his will that Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising.

Earlier this week, Mike and Adam wrote to GoldieBlox, asking why they were taking legal action against them. "When we tried to simply ask how and why our song 'Girls' had been used in your ad without our permission, YOU sued US," they said.