Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

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spazz
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by spazz »

agreed, just plain greed.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by kronz »

The way it got found out was that it was a question on spicks and specks about what the flute line was.

The next day the girl guides or some shit started to sue them.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by almax »

Men at work should sue spicks and specks imo.
Who owns the rights to Kookaburra? (who gets the money)
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by mrj »

What are Men at Work going to sue Spicks and Specks for? You can't be sued for making a casual observation that turns out to be factual (well factual as far as the law is concerned).
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Feigan »

almax wrote:Men at work should sue spicks and specks imo.
Who owns the rights to Kookaburra? (who gets the money)
some small label that owns the rights to Kookaburra Tune.

Larrikin Music Publishing - which owns the copyright for Kookaburra
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by almax »

mrj wrote:What are Men at Work going to sue Spicks and Specks for? You can't be sued for making a casual observation that turns out to be factual (well factual as far as the law is concerned).
sorry i forgot my :teef:
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Lizkins »

what a load of crap!!!
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by youthful_implants »

awesome haha.

standard copyright issue. massive thumbs down to men at work for not crediting the original artist or bothering to come up with something of their own. :lol:
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by youthful_implants »

spazz wrote:agreed, just plain greed.
not greed. comeuppance.
Kookaburra was penned in 1934 by a Toorak school teacher, Marion Sinclair, for a Girl Guides competition.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by almax »

youthful_implants wrote:
spazz wrote:agreed, just plain greed.
not greed. comeuppance.
Kookaburra was penned in 1934 by a Toorak school teacher, Marion Sinclair, for a Girl Guides competition.
When is the cutoff for copyright claims, i thought it was only 50 years or something.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by youthful_implants »

almax wrote:
youthful_implants wrote:
spazz wrote:agreed, just plain greed.
not greed. comeuppance.
Kookaburra was penned in 1934 by a Toorak school teacher, Marion Sinclair, for a Girl Guides competition.
When is the cutoff for copyright claims, i thought it was only 50 years or something.
depends on the nature of the infringement actually, the original may not even have been copyrighted.

but because Land Down Under would have been, it's own copyright comes under scrutiny if its resolved it wasn't original in the first place.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by mrj »

youthful_implants wrote:awesome haha.

standard copyright issue. massive thumbs down to men at work for not crediting the original artist or bothering to come up with something of their own. :lol:
:roll:

yeh right

listen to the song and listen to the tune Kookaburra. whilst the riff sounds pretty similar it forms 9 poofteenths of the actual song, and in the Judge's actual verdict he noted that whilst on its own kookarburra could be deemed to be a substantial part of that riff, it did not constitute a substantial part of the song itself.

And Men At Work were pretty good at coming up with their own stuff actually, given they produced multiple albums (like Business as Usual, Cargo etc). Never mind the many solo albums of Colin Hay's (Peaks and Valleys for example which is great and features prolly one of my favourite songs - 'Boy').

The inclusion of the riff was merely a silent nod to something that was culturally significant to Australians, not an attempt to get rich off someone elses music.

Men at Work are an important part of Australian culture, they for a large part captured the feeling and experiences of a lot of Australians who were first generation Australian born children of immigrant parents, and its bloody disgraceful that a legal technicality is being used to have a go at them like this.

I grew up on Men At Work's music (courtesy of my old man playing constantly in the Kingswood when I was 5) and this whole thing makes my very angry.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Feigan »

they also played the song for two years without the riff before adding it in.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by FullGain »

Lizkins wrote:what a load of crap!!!
i agree!!!!!!
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Amick »

I just think its bizarre its taken this long for this to happen. I agree it's bollocks and pointless semantics.

When was the song released, like 30 years ago? Move on...

:?
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by youthful_implants »

mrj wrote:
youthful_implants wrote:awesome haha.

standard copyright issue. massive thumbs down to men at work for not crediting the original artist or bothering to come up with something of their own. :lol:
:roll:

yeh right

listen to the song and listen to the tune Kookaburra. whilst the riff sounds pretty similar it forms 9 poofteenths of the actual song, and in the Judge's actual verdict he noted that whilst on its own kookarburra could be deemed to be a substantial part of that riff, it did not constitute a substantial part of the song itself.

And Men At Work were pretty good at coming up with their own stuff actually, given they produced multiple albums (like Business as Usual, Cargo etc). Never mind the many solo albums of Colin Hay's (Peaks and Valleys for example which is great and features prolly one of my favourite songs - 'Boy').

The inclusion of the riff was merely a silent nod to something that was culturally significant to Australians, not an attempt to get rich off someone elses music.

Men at Work are an important part of Australian culture, they for a large part captured the feeling and experiences of a lot of Australians who were first generation Australian born children of immigrant parents, and its bloody disgraceful that a legal technicality is being used to have a go at them like this.

I grew up on Men At Work's music (courtesy of my old man playing constantly in the Kingswood when I was 5) and this whole thing makes my very angry.
Dude. I dont care about any of that, its completely irrelevant whether you like them or not but it has clearly coloured your judgement. :lol:

If stuff like this makes you angry then I envy you. :roll:

How are they a significant part of Australian culture if they had to rip it off to be authentic in the first place? That makes no sense. Popular band sure, culturally important? I'm very skeptical. That's like saying U2 are culturally significant to the Irish.

The fact is they made a fortune, and someone else owns the publishing and now the copyright to something they used in their song.

Happens every day. Admittedly this is unusual in that its 30 years after the event. Are Men at Work going to be footing the bill? Not really. EMI will.

This is a WIN for music, if the money goes to a smaller publisher then its a David and Goliath story.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by mrj »

I'm fine to have my opinion coloured by personal feelings here. To me law is a representation of what is and isn't moral. Does this feel right to anybody? It doesn't to me. The general outpouring of rage from the general community over this verdict would suggest that it doesn't feel right to a lot of people.

Further to your point on coloured judgement, again this is probably true, but my understanding is you run a record label and are a recording artist. So while i might seem to have a personal or emotional interest here, I don't think I'm alone.

I think this is a win for owners of copyright, but never could be considered a win for music. What has been proven is that if you make music that resembles someone elses, regardless of how remote the whole final product is from whatever it is being compared to, then suddenly you have stolen something. Musicians get inspiration from each other, mimic each other, interpret each others work, sample, share, collaborate and build on each others work all the time and it's been that way since music began.

I don't disagree with the need to protect the intellectual property rights of people, be they authors, inventors, musicians or whatever. But ultimately regard should be had to the intention of the law, rather than a strict technical interpratation that is clearly dracionian in it's effect. More rulings like this will end up with musicians constantly looking over their shoulder, scared that if they write a tune that kinda sounds like someone elses then they will get their ass sued, which will unltimately restrict musician freedom and creativity. And i dont think thats good for anybody, espcially for music itself.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Feigan »

What does this mean for Electro House?
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Amick »

Its still safe to remix ACDC, MAW not so much...

Watch the posted video on YouTube.

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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by mrj »

Feigan wrote:What does this mean for Electro House?
it means Deadmau5 owes everybody who ever wrote an Electro House number a million dollars.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by youthful_implants »

mrj wrote:I'm fine to have my opinion coloured by personal feelings here. To me law is a representation of what is and isn't moral. Does this feel right to anybody? It doesn't to me. The general outpouring of rage from the general community over this verdict would suggest that it doesn't feel right to a lot of people.

Further to your point on coloured judgement, again this is probably true, but my understanding is you run a record label and are a recording artist. So while i might seem to have a personal or emotional interest here, I don't think I'm alone.

I think this is a win for owners of copyright, but never could be considered a win for music. What has been proven is that if you make music that resembles someone elses, regardless of how remote the whole final product is from whatever it is being compared to, then suddenly you have stolen something. Musicians get inspiration from each other, mimic each other, interpret each others work, sample, share, collaborate and build on each others work all the time and it's been that way since music began.

I don't disagree with the need to protect the intellectual property rights of people, be they authors, inventors, musicians or whatever. But ultimately regard should be had to the intention of the law, rather than a strict technical interpratation that is clearly dracionian in it's effect. More rulings like this will end up with musicians constantly looking over their shoulder, scared that if they write a tune that kinda sounds like someone elses then they will get their ass sued, which will unltimately restrict musician freedom and creativity. And i dont think thats good for anybody, espcially for music itself.
Thats a completely different issue though, the copyright laws are clear cut when it comes to music.

And the band admitted their part in borrowing the music, by playing the actual song they borrowed live during performances!

That makes them culpable, beyond much of a doubt and they were lucky to get away with it for so long.

This goes above and beyond a vague similarity, it wouldn't have stood up in court if it was that simple.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Feigan »

mrj wrote:
Feigan wrote:What does this mean for Electro House?
it means Deadmau5 owes everybody who ever wrote an Electro House number a million dollars.
1 MILLION DOLLAR$$$$
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by mrj »

I think the Deadmau5 writes it DOLLAUR5!!
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Feigan »

bwah ha hah ah ah a

I is raffing out roud.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Lephrenic »

Kookaburra was written in 1934. Larrikin Music Publishing acquired the rights to Kookaburra in 1990 and only discovered Down Under's use of Kookaburra in 2007.

I sympathise with Larrikin about as much as I would with a bank asking for a bailout.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by FoundationStepper »

it sort of feels like someone suing for the use of a riff from the happy birthday song, its so woven into the cultural tapestry, that even if its 'referenced' it doesn't really feel like appropriation of a song in that sense
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by autumnleaves »

Hmm, I find it strange that their strongest evidence is that they used to sing part of the Kookaburra song..

It is obviously very similar, if not partly identical, but it's such a small part of the song. I guess the reason why I find the whole thing kind of strange is because I always considered the Kookaburra song to be like a folk song because it's so ingrained in Aussie culture. I didn't know it was copyrighted and just figured it was some song that they used to sing around the campfire while boiling their billies and trimming their beards and shit.
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by Blaxter »

In 1990, Warner Chappell purchased the company owning the copyright for U.S. $15 million, with the value of "Happy Birthday" estimated at U.S. $5 million.[5] Based on the 1935 copyright registration, Warner claims that U.S. copyright will not expire until 2030, and that unauthorized public performances of the song are technically illegal unless royalties are paid to it. As of February, 2010, those royalties were said[6] to amount to $700.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You
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Re: Men at Work get sued for Land Downunder

Post by FoundationStepper »

yeah was aware thre was some copyright on the happy birthday song but it looks like its only really shown up when used in movies... interesting
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