Men At Work

14 February 2010

Men At Work

The Australian pop group Men At Work in trouble over famous song.

The group face paying £33million in royalties after a court ruled yesterday they ripped off their most famous song from the Girl Guides.

A judge says the flute music from the hit Down Under, which went to No1 in the UK and America in 1983, copied the tune Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree, written by teacher Marion Sinclair in 1935 for a Guides competition.

The Kookaburra song by Miss Sinclair, who died at 93 in 1990, became a popular nursery rhyme and favourite around Girl Guide campfires worldwide.

Now Down Under songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert, along with music giant EMI, face paying millions to publishing firm Larrikin Music, the copyright holders of the Kookaburra song, which sued them for breach of copyright last year.

At the Australian Federal Court in Sydney yesterday, Justice Peter Jacobson said: 'The flute riff in Down Under infringes on the copyright of Kookaburra because it replicates a substantial part of Miss Sinclair's 1935 work.'

But Mr Hay said last night: 'I'll go to my grave knowing Down Under is an original piece of work. In over 20 years no one noticed the reference to Kookaburra. Marion Sinclair never made any claim that we had appropriated any part of her song, and she was alive when Down Under was a hit. Apparently she did not notice either'.

By Jane Coyle

Trainee Solicitor

Jane can be contacted at jane.coyle@lawdit.co.uk