While on the subject of Mars and darkened conference rooms, Men at Work have been found to infringe Larrikin’s copyright in Kookaburra Sits on the Old Gum Tree.
It would seem (from newspaper reports) that 2 bars were a substantial part – shades of the old Colonel Bogey newsreel case.
The video on the Age’s website has the clips of every kid’s favourite folk song and that flute riff.
Richard Acland highlights the crucial comparison in a vacuum:
Even though there was evidence that the pitch, key, rhythm, melodic shape, harmony, musical sentences and context are different, Justice Jacobson found that there was nonetheless a reproduction of a substantial part of Kookaburra in Down Under. This is not to say that Kookaburra amounted to a substantial part of the pop song.
but it all seems rather academic when Jacobson J found at [111]:
Mr Hay also accepted that for a period of about two or three years from around 2002, when he performed Down Under at concerts, he sometimes sang the words of Kookaburra at about the middle of Down Under, at the point at which he reached the flute line.
Looks rather like the crucial battle was last year’s fight over whether or not the Girl Guides or Larrikin owned the copyright in the first place.
Larrikin Music Publishing Pty Ltd v EMI Songs Australia Pty Limited [2010] FCA 29
