Men at Work - Downundergate

[Caravan Ray]

What is going on here?!?!?

Firstly - Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree does not sound like Down Under there might be about 3 notes that coincide - that is it. The Ramones have more to worry about.

What annoys me is that this came about after the sheila that wrote the song died. If she had have complained - fair enough. That is her call. But she carked it - and her rights are bought by Larriken Records - Larriken sees something on telly on Spics and Specs -
next thing - Men At Work are being sued!?!?! WTF!?!?!?


I have never been a big MaW fan - but I will go to the wall with Colin Hay with this one - it is a FARCE - a FARRAGO....
..(imagine a large sweaty middle aged man in front of a television set shouting something incomprehinsibly).

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010 ... ion=justin


...here is the "Kookaburra" song - in case anyone doesn't know it....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1Uq6AB_ ... re=related

[ujnhunter]

That's some bull rumpus if you ask me! I like it how the guy is asking for $40-60 million or some shit... when he's just a chump in a suit looking for a free lunch... eat a dick.

[HeuristicsInc]

ridiculous.
actually, i'm thinking that corporate entities should not be allowed to own copyrights.
-bill

[Billy's Little Trip]

So weird, just last week I had an unusual desire to listen to Men At Work and Down Under was a song that I not only love, but it actually taught me things about Australia I never knew and brought back good memories. It prompted me to go buy Vegemite and at the time I drove a VW bus and my friends and I started referring to it as the combie, lol. We didn't even know what combie meant, but it was just a cool name. Later in life an Aussie friend saw an old picture of us at the beach with the VW and he said, ey mate, nice looking combie you had theh. I laughed and said I haven't heard that term since the song down under and we even called it the combie because of the song, but we never knew what it meant. He then explained it simply means combination van because they were so versatile.

As far as the similarities to Kookaburra, it's not even close enough to make a mistake between the two.

[Caravan Ray]

As far as the similarities to Kookaburra, it's not even close enough to make a mistake between the two.

It also appears that the song was written by Hay and the other dude, before the band happened. Greg Ham later added the flute riff - and he is not credited as a writer. If anyone should be suing anyone it should be Ham - as he provided the very distinctive riff without getting the credit (and cash) for it

[irwin]

If they're so damn similar, you would have thought someone would have noticed, oh, 25 years ago or so.

[ujnhunter]

Do you have a statute of limitations?

[ken]

I don't hear it.

I mean, it no My Sweet Lord/He's so Fine.

Ken

[jb]

I don't hear it. I mean, it no My Sweet Lord/He's so Fine. Ken

It's the flute solo that impinges, and I totally hear it. However, I think two things:

a) It's not fair to let people use your melody for over 20 years and wait until the song's a hit before you sue. That's bullshit and shouldn't be legal.
b) There should be a way to determine how much of the song's success is due to the stolen bit. Some, but probably just a tiny bit.

I don't think any of the guys in the band are living it up these days. Hopefully the suit will target the record company, and won't ruin the lives of those two songwriters.

[roymond]

I heard it the day it came out. But it doesn't win the song. That's what music does...refers to itself. Boy, if this is upheld, there aren't enough lawyers to cover the jazz market.

[Billy's Little Trip]

What's happening to the wonderful land down under? Where women glow and men plunder. First I hear about this, then I read that they are banning small boobs in Aussie porn. Where will it end.

[Caravan Ray]

a) It's not fair to let people use your melody for over 20 years and wait until the song's a hit before you sue. That's bullshit and shouldn't be legal.
.

It is worse than that

Marion Sinclair the writer died in 1988. Larrikin Records took over the copyright in 2000, with copyright backdated to 1990.

A suit from Larrikin said:
" it saddens me, because Marion Sinclair was very gracious in allowing people to use the song.

"It really saddens me to think that, in the last years of her life, while Down Under was having huge commercial success, she was in a nursing home, not earning any money from it, and was probably entitled to."
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/mu ... 1117725552

WTF?!?!? How on earth does taking legal action in 2008 help a woman that died in 1988?

[Caravan Ray]

Do you have a statute of limitations?

It is not a one-off act. The song infringes copyright every time it is played.

[Caravan Ray]

Interesting sidenote:

I was surprised that Larrikin Records was involved in this. It is known as a fairly small independent label that focusses on "traditional" Australian music like Kev Carmody, Redgum etc. Not really a place you would expect to find scumbag lawyers

A little investigation revealed:

" Larrikin started as an independent label and was sold in 1995 to Festival Records.[1]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larrikin_Records

Festival/Festival Mushroom is another well known Australian label with a long history of promoting local bands eg. Mental As Anything Kylie Minogue, Powderfinger etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_Records

Then in 2005 - Festival was taken over by Warner Music.

a ha!....enter the scumbag lawyers...

[Billy's Little Trip]

I decided to really take a listen, since JB clearly hears it. I do now hear it in the flute, but not until the 7th note, then the following 11 notes are an exact match for the first 11 notes of Kookaburra.

BUT, in a musical phrase, It's not the same because it starts different than Kookaburra, so the phrase is different. It would be like saying that you are plagiarizing Dickens if you write, when I was growing up, "it was the worst of times".

[Caravan Ray]

since JB clearly hears it.

I reckon JB is full of shit. There is a lot of people saying that now "oh yeah...I noticed that when it first came out....." Yeah right - these are the same people that thought that YMCA was just a happy song about blokes having a good time together.

As far as i can tell - it is only the "merry merry king of the bush is he" that is similar.
Is there more than that?

But what is this "how gay your life must be" bit?
While I think it is unfair for Men at Work to be sued for copyright infringement - I am all for seeing them sent to Guantanamo Bay and waterboarded for this appalling promotion of ornithological homosexuality.

[Billy's Little Trip]

.....not that there's anything wrong with that.

Another thing. It's not helping Men At Work in this case that the guy playing the flute in their music video just so happens to be sitting on a branch in an old tree whilst playing said plagiarized bit about sitting on the branch of an old tree. If it turns out the said tree he is sitting in is a GUM tree, they're going to need some serious damage control.

Hopfully the Kookaburra legal team isn't as observant as I am, lol.

Watch again and have a chuckle with me, won't you?
[youtube]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DNT7uZf7lew&hl ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DNT7uZf7lew&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/youtube]

[roymond]

I didn't say it was plagiarism, and I didn't say it's the same. I said I heard the similarity. When there's a similar melody, played on a flute (I associate the version of Kookaburra with flute...I don't know why, so don't ask), what came to my mind, immediately, was Kookaburra.

[Billy's Little Trip]

I associate the version of Kookaburra with flute...

why?

[fluffy]

I hear the similarity, too, but it just sounds like any other riff. At worst it's a reference to the original song. It is such a minor, trivial part of the song that I can't even begin to fathom how any reasonable person could see this as infringement.

And also add me to the list of believing corporations shouldn't own copyrights on material written by people who have since died. Actually I take a dim view even on family members exerting copyright well past a work's useful lifetime, too. Just because your dad wrote a hit song doesn't mean you deserve to keep living off of its profits 50 years later.

[Billy's Little Trip]

Just because your dad wrote a hit song doesn't mean you deserve to keep living off of its profits 50 years later.

I have to disagree with this. If people still like the song and are willing to pay for it, I say they should get the inherited rights to it. Especially if it was left to them in a will.

[Spud]

The judge in the My Sweet Lord / She's So Fine case eventually found that there were a grand total of $2,152,028.00 (US) gross royalties made by Harrison on the song. Many regard this number to be inflated, and that the real number is well under a million.

How could it be that "Down Under" generated enough royalties to justify a 40-60 million dollar settlement?