Men At Work Sued for Copyright Infringement August 5, 2009
The 80s band Men at Work were sued in Australia for allegedly copying the song Kookaburra in their timeless hit Down Under. Their first argument, that the person suing had assigned her rights to the song to the Girl Guides Association of Victoria was denied by the Australian court, ruling that the plaintiff still had rights to the song, and could bring suit.
We probably won’t cover this much more, as this is Australian Copyright law, not American, but I wanted to mention it.
Also, I didn’t mention what part of the Men At Work song is allegedly infringing, give the song a listen and see if you (a) can figure out what part it is, and (b) think that Men at Work copied it from Kookaburra.
Related posts:
- Men At Work Slapped with 5% Royalty on “Down Under” The case in one of our most popular posts has...
- Scribd Sued For Copyright Infringement The online document sharing service Scribd.com is being sued for...
- Judge Order US Copyright Group To Show Cause In what is potentially a coup for the defendants in...
- LimeWire Liable for Inducing Copyright Infringement This has been covered well, but it’s worth noting that...
- Twitter Sued For Patent Infringement This week Twitter was sued for patent infringement. The gist...
Posted in: Links by Ben Snitkoff.
Is it a few bars (or maybe just notes) in the space between the stanzas? I don’t think it’s copied.
The article mentions that the flute refrain of “Down Under” was copied.
If you grab the sheet music from kiddidles, the part in question seems to be the first two lines of music, which is the first four bars, or the first half of the song.
You can hear the flute playing this part during these times in the linked YouTube video:
0:10-0:12
0:50-0:53
0:55-0:57
1:53-1:55
1:57-1:59
And you can hear the part in the linked midi file from kiddidles during these times:
0:08-0:12
0:12-0:16
0:24-0:28
0:28-0:32
0:40-0:44
0:44-0:48
0:56-1:00
1:00-1:04
It seems like they probably thought that the song was public domain or that it was a common folk song of sorts, since it might be a short, well known tune in Austrailia, like Happy Birthday is in the US. Unfortunately, I think Happy Birthday is also copyrighted.
Also unfortunately, it seems they unknowingly infringed on that copyright, and while its only a small part of their song, the law is the law.
The Men at Work song was popular when I was a little kid, around the same time I learned The Kookaburra Song. I thought it then and I still think the flute part sounds like the “Merry Merry king of the bush is he.” I count about 11 notes, which I’d guess would be infringement. I always thought they were always paying homage to the song since the kookaburra is an Australian bird.
The fact that the original promo video shows flautist Greg Ham (about 50 seconds in) sitting *in a gumtree* playing the riff that corresponds to the “kookaburra sits in the old gumtree” melody suggests to me they knew what they were doing – except for the part about infringing copyright. I always thought it was a clever “in joke” for Aussie listeners, particularly when it went global. With that in mind, I don’t think the legal action will be looked kindly upon by the general public in this neck of the woods (I suspect the term “w*nkers” might be used in reference to the plaintiffs).