We used to sing the song “Kookaburra” all the time in grade school. Of course our first grade teacher also made us sing “Marching to Pretoria,” while we marched around the block our school was located on.
We sang all sorts of old songs. I guess they don’t do that anymore. We used to sing all sorts of, for lack of a better word, folks songs. There were Mexican songs, and Eskimo songs, and Swedish songs, German songs were especially popular, and all sorts of songs.
As for the lawsuit, the object in these suits isn’t to win, it’s to settle out of court for some money.
I’ve only heard this from the claimant. I don’t know much if anything about this area, but he may well be just shooting his mouth off, or trying to talk the game up.
Since we had versions of the song on Page 1, I’ll throw in the French version we used to sing in school:
Kookaburra rit dans l’eucalyptus
Heureux comme un roi, il rit tant et plus.
Ris, Kookaburra ris
Quand la vie est belle il faut qu’on rie!
(translation: Kookabura laughs in the gum tree; Happy as a king, he laughs so much and more; Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh, when life is good one must laugh.)
We sang both in first grade. Looking back, “Marching to Pretoria” is an odd thing for a bunch of American schoolkids to sing.
Speaking of parody - Weird Al Yankovic has said that for his polka-fied medleys of popular songs, he works out what percentage of the medley each song comprises (including the links, which are his own) and gives that percentage of the standard royalty for usage. Most artists/companies go for it; if they don’t, the segment gets taken out. That way he’s not paying full use royalties for umpteen songs quoted briefly in the medley, and everyone gets a fair cut.
The kicker here is that Sinclair registered a copyright on a song that she didn’t compose and that copyright was then transferred to the moneygrubbers who brought this latter-day lawsuit. The tune of Kookaburra is the same as the Welsh folk song “Wele ti’n eistedd aderyn du?” or “Dacw ti yn eistedd, y 'deryn du” about a blackbird. Sinclair was not a composer, she was a filker.
This is the equivalent of a 2068 lawsuit by the estate of Weird Al against someone who put out a song in 2040 that had a riff that had tonal qualities similar to “Beat It.”
If the tune predates the copyright, I would have thought that would have been a strong legal argument for free and fair use of the tune (since the MaW song didn’t reference the words).
It’s not like you can copyright the tune to “Greensleeves”, even if you make up new words (AFAIK).
Either the Welsh folk song isn’t as old as the Australian version, the defense failed to hire a decent forensic musicologist (yes, they exist) or Australian law is weird.
No, the U.K., Australia, and Canada do not have a parody defense to copyright infringement in the same way the U.S. does. My info is about 10 years out of date, but I don’t recall there being any amendments for parody provisions.
I think it’s likely they don’t know that. After all, they didn’t even realize that Down Under quoted Kookaburra for years, until they had it pointed out to them. Possibly Men At Work’s lawyers don’t know it either. Perhaps you should write to them and let them know.
The first time I ever heard “Down Under” I recognized the quote from “Kookaburra” as a reference to what I thought was a traditional Australian song. There’s no question that the quote was intentional. If Australian copyright law demands royalties, the law is absurd, but it’s the law. It should be changed before this kind of thing happens again. But meanwhile, if that’s the current law, they’ll have to pay.
I think it is just a rumor that Kookaburra uses a traditional Welsh tune. I think the lyrics are based on the Welsh version but not the tune.
I would love it if anyone can prove me wrong, though. I was trying to find a sample of the traditional Welsh song but the MIDI files on the internet sound very different. I might have got the Welsh song title spelled wrong though.
Very broadly speaking, sampling constitutes use of a work, but it is not quite settled how much sampling will trigger royalty requirements. If you look at the credits on a hip-hop album, though, you’ll see dozens and dozens of names, and many of those names are the names of the composers of the sampled works. They’re getting royalties for that.
Under U.S. copyright law, there is a three-year statute of limitations, but note that the existence of a recording implies that infringement will be ongoing. The copyright owner can always get compensation for ongoing infringement, even if it’s too late to claim damages for infringement going back to 1981 or whenever.
He did. He was eventually forced to list David Bowie and Freddie Mercury as co-authors, which means that Bowie and Mercury’s estate are getting royalties.
I knew and had heard the song somewhere. I may be wrong but isn’t the kookaburra the sound often used in old jungle movies because of their distinctive call? Can’t remember where I heard the song but I remembered it before I looked.
The worst case IMO is John Fogerty being sued for copyright infringementbecause he sounded too much like himself. Greedy bastards! John eventually won and the case set prescedent when it went to the supreme court.
Whether Men at Work borrowed a riff or not I hope they prevail. Those bastards didn’t write the song and Down Under was a hit before they did.