Robert
July 6th, 2010, 10:37 AM
Men At Work found guilty...
Now that's an interesting business model - buy the rights to a song that you then sue someone else for stealing... :spank
Australian band Men at Work has been ordered to turn over five per cent of the royalties from its hit 1980s song Down Under.
In Sydney on Tuesday, Federal Court Justice Peter Jacobson ordered the band's recording company, EMI Songs Australia, and the song's writers, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert, to pay five per cent of Down Under's royalties since 2002 and forward them to publishing company Larrikin Music.
In February, Jacobson had ruled that a flute melody in Down Under is copied from an internationally known children's campfire song called Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, for which Larrikin owns the copyright.
Larrikin, which filed the copyright lawsuit in 2009, had sought 60 per cent of Down Under's royalties.
Marion Sinclair, an Australian teacher, wrote Kookaburra (about the native Australian bird) for a girl guides songwriting competition in 1934. Sinclair died in 1988 and, two years later, Larrikin bought the rights to the song at an auction.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/07/06/down-under-lawsuit.html#ixzz0sv9b5OBG
jCyB2l5wqLE
Now that's an interesting business model - buy the rights to a song that you then sue someone else for stealing... :spank
Australian band Men at Work has been ordered to turn over five per cent of the royalties from its hit 1980s song Down Under.
In Sydney on Tuesday, Federal Court Justice Peter Jacobson ordered the band's recording company, EMI Songs Australia, and the song's writers, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert, to pay five per cent of Down Under's royalties since 2002 and forward them to publishing company Larrikin Music.
In February, Jacobson had ruled that a flute melody in Down Under is copied from an internationally known children's campfire song called Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, for which Larrikin owns the copyright.
Larrikin, which filed the copyright lawsuit in 2009, had sought 60 per cent of Down Under's royalties.
Marion Sinclair, an Australian teacher, wrote Kookaburra (about the native Australian bird) for a girl guides songwriting competition in 1934. Sinclair died in 1988 and, two years later, Larrikin bought the rights to the song at an auction.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/music/story/2010/07/06/down-under-lawsuit.html#ixzz0sv9b5OBG
jCyB2l5wqLE