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AU Band Men At Work Owes Royalties On 'Kookaburra'
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!"
Fuck, is the guy who wrote this even still alive?
Oh right, copyright law is written for zombies.
Why don't all you "Pirates" come together and write a computer program to generate all possible melodies for the 32 bar AABA, form. Then publish the whole lot under the creative commons license or whatever, call western music complete, and then download in peace.
Also these lawsuits are always bunk. Noone ever sues over the harmony do they?
Copyright law was originally intended to contribute to the arts by incentivizing creation with a temporary monopoly for the creator. Hands up whoever thinks Ms Sinclair wouldn't have written this song if she knew some company 75 years later weren't able to get a cut of something they had absolutely no part in creating.
Strange the Larrikin Wikimedia page does not mention it, but it is now a Warner Music Group holding (bought by Festival Records, swallowed by Warner Music Australasia).
The *IAA's successfully bought off the Aussie politicians in full public view, it is only natural that they get to recuperate that "investment" in Aussie law changes. Bad thing for Australia is: The carrot they offered in return has turned out to be a dud - those silly Aussie politicians sold out for little more than shiny trinkets of no value.
I'm not saying the system is perfect, but just because a piece of property was created in someone's mind doesn't have to mean that the property suddenly belongs to the planet after an arbitrary time period.
If I owned the copyright to Homer, the Greek, Roman, and Norse tales, and Shakespeare, then I could prevent any new work of narrative from ever being created and sold.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Never knew that such a surreal song had such a literal music video. Oh, well.
They're referencing Kookaburra all right (the flautist actually sits in an old gum tree), but they are not "sampling" it as half the notices about this says. They are also playing it in a minor key, while it's in a major key in the original.
It's also an 80 years old children's song. With four tones, eleven notes in the disputed part. The world is mad.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
travelling in my tricked out combie
on a, bullshit trial, bird in a gum tree,
i met a strange lawyer, he made me nervous
he took my songs and stole my breakfast
and i said oh! you come from a land down under?
where you write a song and a man can plunder
when you hear does it make you wonder?
you mustn't hum, you mustn't play covers
got sued by a man down under
(he had), some copyrights and my song he plundered
i said do you speak(a) my language?
he just smiled and gave me a legalese sandwich,
and i said oh! you come from a land down under?
where you write a song and a man can plunder
when you hear does it make you wonder?
you mustn't hum, you mustn't play covers
Dying in a den in Bombay
(with a) slack jaw, and not much to say
i said to the man "are you trying to exempt me
from playing my tune in a land of plenty ? "
and he said NO! you stole that riff down under
the flute solo it makes me wonder
these rights we bought to plunder
the tunes you make in a land down under