Legal

Men At Work exhaust appeal options in Down Under case

By | Published on Friday 7 October 2011

Men At Work

Aussie band Men At Work have lost in their very final bid to resist having to pay the owners of ‘Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree’ a slice of the royalties from their biggest hit ‘Down Under’.

As previously reported, Larrikin Music, the publisher which ended up owning the rights in ‘Kookaburra’, sued Men At Work and their publishers EMI in 2009, claiming that the short flutey bit in 1980s hit ‘Down Under’ was taken from its song. Despite efforts to question whether Larrikin actually owned ‘Kookaburra’, and arguments that the flute part in ‘Down Under’ was too short to constitute copyright infringement, the claimant won, getting a 5% share of the hit song’s royalties.

Men At Work and EMI appealed, but lost that too earlier this year. They had hoped to take the matter to Australia’s supreme court, the High Court Of Australia, but judges there this week refused to hear the case, meaning the defendants have now exhausted all appeal options. Needless to say, Larrikin Music welcomed the High Court decision, while EMI said it found the ruling disappointing.

Earlier this year Men At Work’s Greg Ham said that he was less angry about having to give Larrikin Music a 5% share of royalties as he was about them originally asking for 60%, thus preventing an out of court settlement and requiring the band and their publishers to spend vast sums of money fighting the case in court.



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