Court Decides on MEN AT WORK "Down Under" Plagiarism Case
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Artist:
Earlier in the year, an Australian court ruled that the band's songwriters, Colin Hay and Ron Strykert, had broken copywrite laws by taking parts of a flute riff when they recorded Down Under. Larrikin Music Publishing (Kookaburra... publisher) asked the court for nearly 60% of the song's royalties, but a Federal Court judge said he considered "the figures put forward by Larrikin to be excessive, overreaching and unrealistic".
Colin Hay had stated to the court that the group did not get copyright clearance for the flute riff because it was an "unconscious" reference to the children's song which has the flute riff in just five bars of a 92-bar song. The children's song was originally written by schoolteacher Marion Sinclair in 1934 for the Girl Guides. Copyright to the song was bought by Larrikin back in 1990 for $6,100 (£3,520).
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Comments (1)
Totally ridiculous! This will set an unending precedent in this field - completely irresponsible IMO. It is completely within reach to unconsciously replicate something swimming around in your head ...it was a nursery rhyme for heaven's sake! It's not like there is an endless amount of possibilities of note/rest combinations within a given time frame either; nuances of other tunes constantly come into play while performing - how far will the courts stretch this!?! It was only 5 bars to boot!
...so you are a jazz player and throw a bit of inky dinky doo into your solo and it gets recorded and now you are a plagiarist? I would fight this decision although at least it was for considerably less money than what was asked - which just shows how totally unscrupulous Larrikin is. If nothing else the publisher should be totally boycotted by musicians. Blah!