Joined: 20 July 2005 Location: New Zealand Posts: 5139
Posted: 05 February 2010 at 1:44pm | IP Logged
What's anyone's take on this? Sounds like they are a bunch of c*nts too me. I've met Colin Hay a long long time ago and he seemed like an ok dude to me.
Melbourne Age wrote (NB This may not be accurate, please check the original post):
'Opportunistic greed': Colin Hay slams Down Under court action
Men at Work's Colin Hay says the only winner from yesterday's Down Under court ruling is "opportunistic greed".
The Federal Court ruled that flute riffs in the 1979 and 1981 recordings of the iconic song reproduced a substantial part of the folk tune Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, infringing its copyright.
In a statement released late last night, Hay - who wrote Down Under with Ron Strykert - hit out at Larrikin Music Publishing, which now owns the rights to Kookaburra. The song was written in 1934 by Toorak school teacher Marion Sinclair as part of a Girl Guides competition.
"I believe what has won today is opportunistic greed, and what has suffered is creative musical endeavour," Hay said.
He attacked the motives of Larrikin Music Publishing, which launched the court action after similarities between the two songs were highlighted on ABC quiz show Spicks and Specks in 2007.
"It's all about money, make no mistake," Hay said.
In the often rambling statement, Hay speaks about the song being his "friend".
"It has always been my friend, ever since it was born," he said.
"I co-wrote this song known as Down Under, with Ron Strykert, sometime in the winter of 1978."
Hay said they had played the song at the Cricketers Arms Hotel in Richmond one Thursday night, and on the way home to Arthurs Creek, with his girlfriend and Strykert in the car, he fell asleep at the wheel and ran into a ditch.
"We ended up with the car pointing toward the sky, and we found ourselves staring through the condensation streaked windscreen at the stars above," Hay said.
"It was cold, very cold, you know that 2 o'clock in the morning Melbourne cold, the kind that chills your bone."
Hay said the song was originally written in the winter of 1978. He said band member Greg Ham, who was not a writer, "unconsciously referenced two bars of Kookaburra on the flute during live shows after he joined the band in 1979" and that it did end up in a recording. But Larrikin was also making a claim on the version of the song that did not include the flute riff, Hay said.
In an affidavit, Ham, who heard Kookaburra as a schoolboy in the 1950s, admitted adding the flute line to try and inject some Australian flavour into the song.
Hay said it was no surprise to him that in over 20 years, no one noticed the similarity between the two songs.
"There are reasons for this. It was inadvertent, naive, unconscious, and by the time Men at Work recorded the song, it had become unrecognisable," he said.
Hay said while Larrikin Music Publishing claimed to be protecting Marion Sinclair's copyright, it should be noted that the Kookaburra writer was "most definitely alive" when Down Under was a hit, and apparently didn't notice the similarities.
Hay said he would continue to claim, and play the song, for has long as audiences wanted to hear it.
Larrikin Music Publishing were not available for comment immediately this morning.
The case returns to court on February 25.
There's a link on this page to listen to the 'rip off'?
Joined: 18 January 2007 Location: New Zealand Posts: 3805
Posted: 06 February 2010 at 11:38pm | IP Logged
It's a tough one ay...
Obviously the company who owns the rights to the original song is in it for their own gain. And most likely bought the rights because of the similarity. The original writer of the tune didn't pursue any kind of copyright infringement at the time.
sh*t they aren't even that similar, firstly they are the same notes, but if written in musical notation, they would look different as they're used in a different timing.
In comparison to half the music of today in which you get looped samples, and direct copies of musical phrases from older groups such as the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, who in turn, borrowed riffs from traditional music, and Blues... etc etc i think you get my drift.
Put it this way, there are only so many ways you can arrange CDEFGAB (7 full notes) and the half tones in between.
Here are some considerations:
'Midnight Special' is not by CCR
'House of the Rising Sun' is not by The Animals
'Whiskey in the Jar' is not by Thin Lizzy
Joined: 06 March 2009 Location: New Zealand Posts: 675
Posted: 08 February 2010 at 11:12am | IP Logged
Whisky In The Jar has had about four lives, starting as an old folk song (like way more than a century ago), and I like every version! So should the original artists get some money? Should someone start up a record company, claim the rights, and get some (lots of) money?
The debate goes round and round, but listening to the Kookaburra v MAW versions, 'opportunistic greed' is absolutely the defining characteristic of this argument.
There are some blatant plagiarists at work out there (npi); this is right at the lower end of the scale.
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Topic: Music Copyright
