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AU Band Men At Work Owes Royalties On 'Kookaburra'

Posted by kdawson on from the that's-our-culture-they're-locking-up dept.

neonsignal writes "Iconic Australian band Men at Work have been ordered to pay royalties for an instrumental riff in their song 'Down Under.' The notes were sampled from a well-known children's song 'Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree,' written in 1934 for a Girl Guide's Jamboree. The Justice found the claims of the copyright owner Larrikin to be excessive, but ordered the payment of royalties and a percentage of future profits. Let's hope the primary schools are up to date with their ARIA license fees!"

12 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Re:1934 by norpy · · Score: 5, Informative

    The person who wrote it wrote it as part of a competition for the girl scouts. She is long dead and the scouts sold the rights long ago.

  2. link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/06/2945781.htm

  3. Re:1934 by trentfoley · · Score: 3, Informative

    According to the bbc article:

    Larrikin Music, which is owned by London's Music Sales Group, bought the rights to the classic folk song in 1990, following Sinclair's death in 1988.

  4. The Lyrics by Anthony · · Score: 5, Informative
    Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree
    Merry merry king of the bush is he
    Laugh kookaburra laugh kookaburra
    Gay you life must be.

    Sung to the flute riff on "Land Down Under"

    --
    Slashdot: Where nerds gather to pool their ignorance
  5. Re:Reminds me of... by beowulfcluster · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Verve sampled that obscure version of the track and licenced the use of it so that wasn't unintentional. I think the problem was the Stones representatives thought they ended up using too much of the sample in the song. They realized this only after the song became a success, of course.

  6. Re:1934 by demonrob · · Score: 5, Informative

    wrong band. Peter Garrett was Midnight Oil.

  7. Re:Even If They Lose the Appeal... by Namarrgon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Even with only 5% royalties and six years, that's apparently still a six-figure sum.

    Wouldn't have guessed they were still averaging $333K+ a year in royalties. I can see why these aging rockers tend to fight for copyright extensions.

    --
    Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
  8. Somewhat bizarrely... by williamhb · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... the whole court case only happened as a result of a TV panel game, Spicks and Specks (Australian version of Never Mind The Buzzcocks). In how many years of every employee of that Australian music company presumably hearing Down Under played how many hundreds of times, nobody noticed until it came up as a curious fact on the telly...

    http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/music/quiz-show-sparks-aussie-anthems-battle/story-e6frfn09-1111117725552

  9. Re:Even If They Lose the Appeal... by Darinbob · · Score: 4, Informative

    The copyright holder was asking for 60% of royalties, and the judge decided that was a ridiculous amount, so reduced to 5%. Still is a bit much, but it could have been quite a lot worse.

  10. flute riff by martin-boundary · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqOIdtKZTG4

    1. Re:flute riff by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 3, Informative

      It's the same mode, Ionian. The example plays them in the same key - the Kookaburra melody starts on the 5th, the flute on the third. The flute part would effectively be a harmony to the Kookaburra melody.

      As much a part of Aussie culture as it is, I'm surprised it isn't recognized as the homage it probably is, conscious or not. Every jazz player ever has been guilty of lifting something at some point in their life, and that's when you have shifting rhythm or different modes to fit what you're playing, and often it's more notes than this. Everyone just nods and winks when that happens.

      I'd love to find a transcript of the proceedings, but then I'd probably just save it for a later which never comes. There has to be at least one person at some point who exclaims "you people are so retarded I think you gave me HIV".

  11. Re:Perhaps copyright needs to be more like tradema by ACDChook · · Score: 4, Informative

    Where is this strange world you live where Kleenex, Xerox and Google *almost* became common terms referring to the generic?

    Anywhere outside the USA.

    I blow my nose with tissues.
    I photocopy things with a photocopier.
    And I search for things with Bing or Yahoo. I also google for things with Google.