"Men at Work" loses royalties

[vespapod]

Wow!!! "Men at Work" loses 5 percent royalties forever for copying the flute solo from a campfire song for their song "Down Under". Cool!!

Hey!!..wasnt that me farting in "Every Breath You Take"??? I'll take 5 percent of Il Pilaggio...thats what?? 45 hectares (WTF is a hectare)

[Divemistress of the Dark]

Wow! You gotta link? Why the heck now, after that song came out like 3 decades ago?

[thedaner]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38106487/ ... rtainment/

[luddite lady]

[quote="vespapod"]Wow!!! "Men at Work" loses 5 percent royalties forever for copying the flute solo from a campfire song for their song "Down Under". Cool!!

Hey!!..wasnt that me farting in "Every Breath You Take"??? I'll take 5 percent of Il Pilaggio...thats what?? 45 hectares (WTF is a hectare)[/quote]

Nope, vespa. Your farting was in Sting's far less successful song "Every Breath I Hold". Although inspirational, your contribution entitles you to only three tablespoons of olive oil.

A hectare is a pretentious acre. Actually, it's about two and a half acres, but if you have any real sense of how big an acre is, you're still way ahead of me on this one.

Pity about Men at Work.

[smax]

when that tune came out in 1983. i was 8 or 9... my older brother, who was 13 or 14, told me that it was The Police. even recently the song was on the radio and someoen told me that they still thought it was a police song.

i remember that as the outro comes in the singer, erm, sings, "jam-jar, jam-jar, jam-jar, jam-jar"... Jam Jar was a nick-name for a Police car in the 80's: they used to be called 'Jam Sandwiches' as they were white with a red stripe down the middle.....

anyway, quite right. it's been painfully obvious that the intro was "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree".... they shoulda waited 20 more years for the song to be out of copyright.

[DirtyMartini]

Another article with a bit more detail about the numbers:

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/na ... 5888404948

Larrikin Music Pub gets 5% of royalties starting in 2002 and onward.

[moonstone]

[quote="smax"]Jam Jar was a nick-name for a Police car in the 80's: they used to be called 'Jam Sandwiches' as they were white with a red stripe down the middle..... [/quote]


Ha! I remember that!

I also remember Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. We used to sing it round the camp fire at brownies

Funny I didn't put the two tunes together 'til I heard about the impending court case earlier on this year.

[zilboy]

Yup, it's the song, note for note. I remember reading about the lawsuit and Colin Hay saying that Men At Work played it in a minor key, so it wasn't the same. That's completely false. They play it in a major key, just as it was written. I sing this tune with my 4th graders when we cover harmony.

Still it could have been much worse for The Men. They got off pretty light.