Posted on 10/10/2011 12:56:14 PM PDT by naturalman1975
AUSTRALIAN band Men at Work lost their final court bid to prove they did not steal the distinctive flute riff of their 1980s hit Down Under from a children's campfire song.
The High Court of Australia on Friday denied the band's bid to appeal a federal court judge's earlier ruling that the group had copied the signature flute melody from the song Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.
Kookaburra was written more than 70 years ago by Australian teacher Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides competition. Sinclair died in 1988, but publishing company Larrikin Music - which now holds the copyright for Kookaburra - filed a copyright lawsuit in 2009.
Last year, Federal Court Justice Peter Jacobson ruled that the Down Under flute riff replicated a substantial part of Sinclair's song. The judge later ordered Men at Work's recording company, EMI Songs Australia, and Down Under songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert to pay five per cent of royalties earned from the song since 2002 and from its future earnings.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
Here’s another one. As far as I know there has been no lawsuit. “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred uses an 18 note phrase (at 1:13 in the video)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39YUXIKrOFk&ob=av3e
from Jimmy Hendrix’s “Third Stone From The Sun” (at 0:42 in the video)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUg7xl4kKUw
Less than 5-seconds even...I think the second phrase in that 5-second clip actually has different intervals between the notes, giving it a minor chord sound.
I’m the only one I ever knew who sang this in class. We always over sold the word “gay” with extra emphasis on the word and was never made to stop. I dread to think what would happen to us if we we’re students and did that now.
Looks like a case of “Lawyers at Work”.
LOL! We used to overemphasize ‘gay’ as well.
This was more of a Boy Scout song, as I recall, but we might have sung it in kindergarten as well.
Either way, I def. remember this song, and I always thought that was the riff that Men At Work used in that song.
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