The Song Fight Bulletin Board

the big news down here out of your superbowl shenenigans was an apparent copyright infringement during an ad break.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-02-08/j ... io/3817414

An ad for yohurt was apparently shown:

[youtube]y59VUQxX3Dk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]


that bore an uncanny resemblance to a major hit a few years ago by US born, West Australian uber-hippie, John Butler:

[youtube]PO2b3cggqs0&feature=player_embedded#![/youtube]


Not sure about this one. Sure - the riff is almost identical, no doubt about that, and Mr Butler's riff is insanely catchy - but personally I would file this along along with the Men At Works Downunder/Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree controversy of a few years ago and call it a coincidence (yes - I know Men at Work were sued or something and lost, so my opinions are fairly poor in this regard).

At least if Johnny Butler does sue them and get some cash - one hopes he may put some of it towards a haircut and some clean clothes.


BTW: If you are not familiar with the song "Zebra" - have a listen. It is a wonderful song. By far my favourite thing by the JB Trio. He tends to be very political in many of his songs, which is fine because his politics align pretty much exactly with mine - but he turns me off a bit by being a bit too earnest and serious all the time and lacking any humour (as I said...he was born American). But this song - I have no idea at all what "Zebra" is supposed to be about, but it does get one's booty shaking.

...then again. Could it be possible that some slimy ad-monkey had an Australian holiday 5 years ago, heard the song and it stuck in his head - and thought recently as he searched for a catchy riff to flog his filthy youhurt "...no one will ever know - no West Australian hippies are going to be watching superbowl..."?

Hasn't music gotten to the point where we're just repeating shit anyway? I wouldn't doubt that whoever wrote the commercial's music may have no idea where/what Australia is.

dunno, the australian song is better than the one from the ad pretty catchy!
-bill

Manhattan Glutton wrote:Hasn't music gotten to the point where we're just repeating shit anyway?

That is what I would have thought.

And if you have a thousand monkeys banging away in advertising offices (sharply dressed monkeys with little ponytails and cocaine habits) for a thousand years - one will probably eventually churn out the opening riff of "Zebra".

That song is damn catchy. The louder they complain about this, the more music they're gonna sell.

hey, good marketing strategy! maybe we should try to get our music thefted by superbowl commercials too!
-bill

i say the tune in the commercial is different enough, but it is pretty close... i like JBT, but agree he is pretty up front with his politics. the album this song was on is still one of my favorite albums, mostly cause its catchy as heck, and its not over the top political as his older work, yet not as overproduced as some of the new songs. i saw JBT up outside of Washington DC a few years back, and it was an amazing show. he sat on stage alone for about 15 mins and produced this wall of music with nothing but a guitar and his fingers, i was in awe, i looked around and everyone was just jaw to the floor. apparently that was completely unscheduled so they didnt have time to play 1/4 of the set, and actually played "zebra" double time because they knew people wanted to hear it. it was still an amazing show. angus and julia stone (another aussie act i assume) opened for them and were very good as well... i tried to tell them so by offering them a beer when i saw them about after their set, but i guess they were more concerned with their conversation than my drunk ass interrupting it. as i said, a great show.

Uncle Jessy got pwnd, lol. It is different enough to squeeze out of a copyright suit I think. Catchy song though.

Also, I must have been using the facilities during that commercial, because I don't remember seeing it.

The Kookooburra thing was actually that Men At Work played an actual homage to the original song, because music all builds on other music and everything is a reference to something else. So yeah I mean Men At Work did use a riff from another song, knowingly, but the question that should be asked is, "SO?!"

fluffy wrote:The Kookooburra thing was actually that Men At Work played an actual homage to the original song, because music all builds on other music and everything is a reference to something else. So yeah I mean Men At Work did use a riff from another song, knowingly, but the question that should be asked is, "SO?!"

Shush...

now the yoghurt people will use that defense:

"Your Honour - we were paying homage to Mr Butler, he being a dirty hippy covered in all sorts of bacterial life, and us selling a dairy product produced by bacterial fermentation of milk....



I am still slightly annoyed because I never picked the "Kookaburra" homage in Downunder. I know they said it was - but I didn't pick it...

fluffy wrote:The Kookooburra thing was actually that Men At Work played an actual homage to the original song, because music all builds on other music and everything is a reference to something else. So yeah I mean Men At Work did use a riff from another song, knowingly, but the question that should be asked is, "SO?!"

I tend to agree with you on this, but when it came up in court, Colin Hay's defense was that he legitimately didn't know he had employed a copyrighted melody. He might be telling the truth (flautist Greg Ham may have written that line without consulting Hay), but based on the placement of the melody in the song - and the fact that it's a song about Australian cultural pride - two things seem clear to me.
1.) The use of the melody was intentional one someone's part, and
2.) The song is better with that line than it would have been without it.

To me, that lawsuit was ridiculous not because of the charge or the ineffectual defense against it, but rather because it was such an obvious case of copyright trolling. Marion Sinclair, the author and copyright-holder of the song, must surely have been made aware of "Land Down Under" at some point before her death. She never sued. Larrikin Music Publishing, the actual copyright holder, didn't sue until well after her death. I doubt that's a coincidence.

As to "Yoghurtgate," I think that's much muddier territory. Like it or not, most "soundalikes" are legal. In fact, that's the point - they're just different enough to avoid litigation. They wanted to get "Zebra," but they couldn't, so they commissioned something that sounded similar to (but legally distinct from) "Zebra." The same thing happened a year ago when T-Mobile asked Watsky to pitch their phone service. They offered him $250,000, and he still said no. So they got some other white kid who looked and sounded like Watsky to do a "fast rap" in Watsky's style. Sleazy? Yes. Illegal? Nope.

Generic wrote: Marion Sinclair, the author and copyright-holder of the song, must surely have been made aware of "Land Down Under" at some point before her death. She never sued. Larrikin Music Publishing, the actual copyright holder, didn't sue until well after her death. I doubt that's a coincidence.

What is more of a coincidence is that Larrikin was initially a small "trad" label. It was bought in 1995 by Festival - a label owned by News Limited (Murdoch). In 2005 Festival was sold to Warner Music. The suit occured in 2009.

Caravan Ray wrote:

Generic wrote: Marion Sinclair, the author and copyright-holder of the song, must surely have been made aware of "Land Down Under" at some point before her death. She never sued. Larrikin Music Publishing, the actual copyright holder, didn't sue until well after her death. I doubt that's a coincidence.

What is more of a coincidence is that Larrikin was initially a small "trad" label. It was bought in 1995 by Festival - a label owned by News Limited (Murdoch). In 2005 Festival was sold to Warner Music. The suit occured in 2009.

Even better.



Note, by the way, that Sinclair herself died in 1988. The only person who ever had a legitimate claim to stop someone from using that melody had been dead for 21 years before the suit was filed. It drives me up a freaking wall.

And this morning, the Greg Ham was found dead in his home. He played that now-infamous flute line, as well as the saxophone on "Who Could It Be Now?" and various other instruments on various other Men at Work songs.

If nothing else, his work promoted more discussion than that of most similarly-incidental sidemen.

R.I.P.