Men at Work’s Insane Lawsuit Problem
One of the biggest pop hits of the early 80s was “Down Under” by Australia’s Men at Work, which helped their Business as Usual album sell more than 15 million copies and winning both a Grammy and a Juno in the process.
The band broke up in 1986 and stayed apart for ten years. They appeared at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and continue to tour sporadically throughout the world with a rotating line-up behind singer Colin Hay.
It was all good–until February 2009 when Larrikin Music Publishing decided to sue. At issue was a portion of “Down Under” that seemed co-opted from a 1934 song, “Kookaburra,” which was written for some Girl Scouts by a woman named Marion Sinclair.
Although Larrikin owned the rights to the song for decades, they didn’t pay any attention to “Down Under” until someone at the firm heard a question on an Australian quiz show that linked the two songs. Lawyers were called, a suit was filed and in January 2010, a judge declared that yes, part of the flute bit in the song did indeed infringe upon “Kookaburra.”
There were several appeals, but all were rejected. And now that Australia’s highest court is refusing to hear the case, Larrikin will receive 5% of all profits generated by the song since 2002 and 5% of all future profits. Case closed.
Crazy? I think so. Compare and contrast the two songs yourself.
There's no need to compare and contrast — even if the one copies part of the other, lots of art is about building on older work. For example, out of Shakespeare's twenty-seven plays not based on historical events, twenty-three lifted the plot from someone else's work. Copyright as currently enforced is squelching a big part of traditional, worthwhile creativity.