BBC News
Men at Work have lost a plagiarism case over similarities between the flute solo in "Down Under" and the classic "Kookaburra". "Down Under" has been around for 27 years, and this case was not brought forward until last year. It's not like the song is obscure or that the similarities are vague, so why now?
The case can be made that copyrights exist so that people can continue to gain profit and recognition for their work, but at what point does one stop? "Kookaburra" was written in 1934 and the writer, Marion Sinclair, died in 1988. So she obviously no longer cares about profits and recognition. The case was brought forward by Larrikin Music who has owned the publishing rights to the song since 1990. So a company that neither created the song nor owned the song when "Down Under" was released is now enforcing the copyright after almost 20 years of neglect. They want 60% of the all the money "Down Under" has made, even from before 1990, when they didn't own the publishing rights.
The best part is that the tune for "Kookaburra" is based on a Welsh folk song.
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