Men At Work found guilty of copying melody

[Robert****]

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...

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/2...#ixzz0sv9b5OBG

[Spudman***]

The new company shouldn't have any right to compensation for two reasons: the past royalties were not being claimed at the time of sale and the songs don't even sound the same. I hope the judge tosses it out. This kind of crap makes me mad when people think they are entitled to compensation on such a flimsy premise. It smacks of greed.

[Robert****]

Seems to me it's final - Colin Hay and Ron Strykert are going to have to cough up five per cent of Down Under's royalties since 2002.

[Eric***]

I agree that it's a total greed move. What did you mean about the past royalties being claimed at the time of sale? I'm not sure I understand that part.

And yeah, this isn't a dead ringer for the original melody, at least not initially. Some copies (Coldplay -> Satriani) are too obvious to ignore, but it took me a little while to figure out how these were the same.

[markb]

Clever of them getting in with a few years left in copyright. As I understand it, Aus law like the UK states that things pass into the public domain 30 years after the creator's death. Recorded works are 50 years after the date of recording.
I suppose now they'll go after every kindergarten in Aussie and NZ for the performance royalties

[Spudman***]

I suppose now they'll go after every kindergarten in Aussie and NZ for the performance royalties

If they don't then they were certainly just going after the money and not the principle.

[R_of_G]

The news report would have been better served by having someone play the melody from the published copywritten sheet music for the children's song on a flute rather than having us compare/contrast a children's choir with a flute solo. I can hear similarities in the melody, but the timing and phrasing are different enough that I couldn't say definitively whether or not it was the same melody, certainly not to an extent I'd base a legal decision on it.

These situations always put this one in my head...