Rock PING
Good grief... how long are copyrights on songs in Australia anyway?
Plagiarism is men at work, too!
A local radio station played the two songs involved in this lawsuit. What a stretch, I can’t believe Men at Work lost. I’d think they’d try to appeal, maybe.
And the Men At Work song was released in 1983, so it took them 27 years ago to figure Men At Work allegedly plagarized a Girl Guide song?
I just listened to both, in my mind they are not even close. Men at Work got hosed!!!
WTF. Maybe three or four notes of the flute riff is like Kookabara. Also is the copyright in AU for 100+ years. This is stretch. And what about any statute of limitations? The Men At Work song in 20+ years old.
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
The two songs sound nothing alike.
In music, there’s a difference between plaigiarism and quoting. You can’t, obviously, reference your sources in a three minute song. Generally, it’s not considered a problem unless it’s the entire song (see the Ghostbusters vs. I Want a New Drug lawsuit from the 80s between Ray Parker Jr. and Huey Lewis).
You can, however, quote a part of another song. Musicians do it all the time. It’s commonly accepted practice. That’s clearly what happened here. There’s no question he’s quoting the Kookaburra song (he’s sitting in a gum tree in the original video, for pete’s sake), but the real question is whether or not it matters.
I’d say no... along with damn near every pop musician of the last 60 years.
The notes and measures are demonstrably different!
I recall learning this song decades ago in my elementary school music class. I still remember the tune but not what a Kookaburra is. Even at the time I thought it was annoying to have to sing about something called a Kookaburra. I doubt the publisher of our school music book paid royalties to Australia.
They stink anyway. Not quite as much as the idiots called Midnight Oil though
the flute riff was stolen from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, written by Marion Sinclair in 1934