Men At Work lose plagiarism case in Australia (over their 1983 hit "Down Under")

[alp227]

The Australian band Men at Work are facing a big legal bill after a court ruled it had plagiarised a Girl Guides' song in its 1983 hit, Down Under.

Larrikin Music had claimed the flute riff from the 1981 hit was stolen from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, written by Marion Sinclair in 1934.

The federal court in Sydney ordered compensation to be paid.

That amount has yet to be determined but Larrikin's lawyer said it could reach 60% of income from the song.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8497433.stm

[Nikki Stone1]

1. 60% of profits for a flute accompaniment?

?

[depakid]

2. And after all that time not having filing an action to assert their rights?

Raises an interesting question as to whether laches (sort of a flexible, statute of limitations in equity) might apply.

After all, "Kookaburra sits in the Old Gum Tree" is well known to every Aussie, and so the plaintiff's ought to have brought their case 27 years or so ago, when it wouldn't have so prejudiced other parties.

[EFerrari]

3. You'd think that tune would be something like public domain by now. n/t

[KonaKane]

5. Public domain only applies after a copyright has expired

which in most cases is something like 75 years, which would have put "Kookabura" solidly in the window.

[depakid]

6. Copyright protection lasts a long time

Not sure how that worked was when it was written by the schoolteacher in 1934, but apparently she jumped through the right hoops.

Looking into it- seems the music company that bought the rights from the public trustee of her estate back in 1990 only "discovered" the infringement after a TV show remarked on the similarities in 2007.

I'm not buying it- and neither is Ms. Depa, as she recalls that people knew that back in the 80's when the song was popular. Seems (as one would expect) it was fairly common knowledge.

[Kievan Rus]

7. It was back in the day...not after Hollywood and $cientology....

lobbied for the completely absurd life-plus-seventy copyright terms.

I'm all for musicians, authors, filmmakers and the like to be paid for their work...but nobody needs a life-plus-seventy copyright term. For example, if George Lucas lives until or beyond 2030 (which is not unreasonable as he would be 86 years old when that year rolls around), then the Star Wars series will not enter the public domain until the 22nd century, over 125 years after the original came out. And this of course, assumes there aren't additional term extensions. Di$ney has already lobbied twice for extensions so their characters don't go into the public domain...and it wouldn't shock me if they do it again when the terms are about to run out again.

[slampoet]

12. Balance that against 14 years for a copyright in 1710 as opposed to 75+ in 2010.

[XemaSab]

4. Considering that the Girl Guides ripped it off an indigenous species

I can't see how this suit has merit.

[Javaman]

11. I would think an appeal would be in order.

but than again, I don't know how the Australian legal system works.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[TexasObserver]

9. Who can it be, now?

[Berry Cool]

10. At least now I understand which part of the song they were saying was plagiarized

which I didn't understand the first time around and it made no sense to me. Now it does, but I still don't see how this qualifies as plagiarism rather than a simple "quoting" or whatever you might call it. I don't know, maybe Aussie law is very strict but sheesh!

I'm thinking of how that old Sugarloaf song "Don't Call Us, We'll Call You" used the famous riff from the Beatles' "I Feel Fine," for example. Was that plagiarism?