[LdSentinal]

This is a sad, sad day.

Link

[the invisib1e hand]

come on, that aussie music is like reggae -- it all sounds alike.

Colin is actually quite a guitar player, incidentally.

[dinoparty]

Is there no statute of limitations on such a claim? Goddness, it been 25 years!

[Cincinatus]

I know both songs and frankly, I don’t see very much similarity. This is in no way a slam-dunk, as was the “He’s So Fine/My Sweet Lord” plagiarism.

[real saxophonist]

I've played that a few times.

What's fun is when you're playing tenor saxophone in rock situation, you're playing in F# and B all night...

[dead]

A few years ago, Colin Hay put out an album called Man at Work. In addition to new songs, he included a few solo acoustic reworking of a some Men At Work hits - Down Under, Overkill, Who Can it Be Now.

It's really an excellent album all around.

[ari-freedom]

Laugh, Kookaburra! Laugh, Kookaburra!
Gay your life must be

[pepperhead]

Ridiculous...

I have heard a lot worse. And why didn’t Marion Sinclair before she died in 1988? Why didn’t Larrikin Music sue before 2010?

[RichInOC]

Okay, I know both songs (“Kookaburra” made it up here to the States, too) and now that I think about it I get the resemblance, but I had no idea “Kookaburra” was under copyright. More to the point...nobody with a financial interest noticed the resemblance almost thirty years ago, back when “Down Under” was hitting Number One in Australia, the UK and the US? Really?

[B-Chan]

That judge has a head full of zombie.

[La Lydia]

I learned to sing that song in elementary school and probably sang it hundreds of times at school and at camp. I love the Men at Work song and never, ever, heard a likeness, although the Kookaburra song is engraved on my brain cells. I think the court is tone-deaf.

[paulycy]

Bad ruling. That song is not similar. Whoever thinks it does is not thinking about music but only about money.

[TalBlack]

“I have come to the view that the flute riff in ‘Down Under’ … infringes on the copyright of ‘Kookaburra’”

A freaking riff!? If that were actionable then a lot of people would owe Chuck Berry big money. For that matter alot of producers of cheesy flicks would ALSO owe this publisher for that crappy flute riff.

[element92]

what is vegemite?

[stainlessbanner]

They don't sound alike to me....of course it's only two bars of the song. Unreal.