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  • this just shows how petty people are, that after all these years it took them this long to do something about it, all for money greedy bastards!

  • Since when did Megyn Kelly have an Australian accent?

  • @stevespielberg I believe you. I think so too.

  • Spicks and specks DARN you go back to playschool dude so men at work could live but they split up :( :( :(

  • there are millions of songs that sound alike, if you go to that amount of stretch when comparing song parts.

    fuck this shit.

  • Adam Simpson, [Larrikin Lawyers] is a smarmy faced prick and should hang his head in shame for getting involved in this case! I could punch his face in, CUNT!!

  • airsupplyband is sooooooooooo wrong. 

  • larriken only got 5%. they should ahve got nothing. i dont hear any kukaberra in down under.

  • Colin Gay you're going to jail now with Strykert!!!!!! So is Clown Ham!!!!! Cheaters!!!!! Our song Now & Forever should have been the number one song in 1981 and not this stolen song!!!!! Justice for Larrikin and Air Supply's song!!!!!!!

  • Travesties of justice such as these are fine examples for the NEED of TORT REFORM a.s.a.p.

  • Warren Fahey is a LOSER. Here's some lyrics for his stupid little tune

    .....Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, line him up with a 303, laugh Kookaburra, laugh Kookaburra...BANG!

    Hope you get what you deserve Fahey.

    Larrikin music is a DISGRACE for doing this.

  • this is bullshit

  • so if you really stretch your imagination you can hear similarities for all of 3 seconds and the company wants 60% or song royalties...what greedy scumbags.

  • The makers of Vegemite are in line for their share

  • better start suing artists for using the same pallete, and suing everyone who writes for using the same alphabet??..

  • money, money, money

  • At this point I would like to thank the lawyers for their contribution to society....

  • As someone pointed out here on youtube they knew exactly what they were doing as the flute is carrying the tune and where is the flute player?...sitting in the tree same as the kookaburra...coincidence or taking the mick?

  • Sounds like the Aussie's lawyers are just as money-grubbing greedy as the bastards here in American.

  • this is the biggest joke in Australian music history. Nobody is ever going to release a record in Australia again.

  • Lawyers....If I was a lawyer and someone said 'what do you do'? I would say that I was a Pedophile to avoid the embarrassment...

  • What is the next move sued BARNEY because he also sings the Koobaburra!

    this is ridiculous!!

  • What is the next move sued BARNEY because he also sings the Koobaburra!

  • Completely different melodies imo.

  • I'm not australian but i love the song by men at work.

    isn't Kookaburra a nursery rhyme? arent happy birthday or twinkle twinkle little stars nursery rhymes? so by that logic the entire world is guilty for copyright infringement?

  • @loknich

    How would the entire world be guilty of copyright infringement? You're an idiot.

  • @loknich Sadly Happy Birthday is also copyrighted. That why restaurants make up their own birthday songs for their customers, or else they'd owe Warner about $20,000 every time they sing it. This is the problem with copyright law.

  • aaaaa now i understand, The woman who wrote the song died then the copyrights where sold a lawyer firm, and now they want tons and tons of money.

  • Thats it! I am setting fire to the old gum tree and shooting the kookaburra with my rifle if it tries to fly away. Men At Work just got a serious hosing right here folks!

  • Kookaburra sits on a gold nest egg

  • greedy fucking slimey bastards, id love to knock the hit shit out of Larrikin. I never put on me mix 80s tape to hear a fucking old tune named kookaburra, i put on Men at Work. " i gave him a bit of my sandwich and Larrikin smiled and fucking took it ALL.

  • 0.45 secs = do we really need these people on our planet ?

  • The largest royalty payment -- nearly $230,000 --- in the settlement will go to the estate of Tommy Edwards, who recorded the hit single "It's All In The Game" for what was then MGM Records. MGM Records catalog is now owned by Universal Music.

    Other recipients include jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan, who is owed $78,000 and the Fontaine Sisters, who are owed nearly $107,000. Morning TV show host Regis Philbin, who recorded an album in 1968, is owed $7,255.

  • In the event that the royalties are not claimed, the money will be turned over to the state, which will hold them until the claims are made. But Spitzer said he hoped that all of the royalties would be claimed.

    Donnelly said he originally considered filing class action suits against the labels. "But what we discovered is that every time we found a good plaintiff, the record companies would offer to pay them."

  • Spitzer said the interest on the royalties would be included in the payouts to the artists.

    The record companies agreed to establish Web sites that include lists of artists and writers that are owed payments. They also agreed to take out advertisements in industry publications and pledged to share artists' contact information with one another.

  • "I think there was a lot more money than was disbursed today," said Donnelly, who has represented such artists as jazz giant Ornette Coleman and funk pioneer Bootsy Collins in such royalty disputes. "They've been making interest on this money for a long time."

    Spitzer said the interest on the royalties would be included in the payouts to the artists.

    The record companies agreed to establish Web sites that include lists of artists and writers that are owed payments.

  • 'DID THE RIGHT THING'

    Spitzer noted that the labels -- Vivendi Universal's Universal Music Group, Sony Corp.'s Sony Music, EMI Group Plc Bertelsmann AG's BMG Group and closely held Warner Music Group cooperated after his office approached them.

    "They did the right thing," he said.

    Music industry attorney Bob Donnelly, whom Spitzer credited with bringing the issue to his attention, was more critical of the labels.

  • "When artists cannot be located because, for example, they or their estates have moved without providing contact information, the royalties are held by the company for the artist to claim them," said Steven Marks, general counsel for the industry's trade group Recording Industry Association of America.

  • While some popular artists such as David Bowie, Sean "P Diddy" Combs and Dolly Parton will benefit, the majority of the artists are not stars, but rather more obscure performers and one-hit wonders, Spitzer said.

    "We have this misperception that artists have all gained enormous wealth by virtue of their success," he said at a press conference. "But there are many artists who struggle, who have one successful song and they depend on those royalties.......

  • Date: May 4, 2004 @ 6:42 PM

    Artists to get $50 mln in unpaid music royalties

    By Derek Caney

    NEW YORK (Reuters) - The world's largest record labels will return $50 million in unpaid royalties to thousands of artists following a two-year probe by the New York State Attorney General's Office, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said Tuesday.......

  • The Beatles, Romance - All Dis Music, and so on.......

    Criminals

    11:11

    

  • EMI IS A CRIMINAL OPERATION AND A DISGRACE TO THOSE WHO CREATE ORIGINAL MUSIC COMPOSITIONS! WHO CARES THAT THEY'RE A SUPER POWER IN THE MUSIC PUBLISHING BUSINESS? CRIME IS AND ALWAYS WILL BE CRIMINAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Kenneth Wright

    "Romance"

    11:11

  • Today a judge has ordered Men at work must pay 5% of money earned from the song since 2002 as well as future royalties.

    Larrikin Music, which owns the copyright to Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree, had sought 60% of royalties.

    Obviously it could've been worse for Men at Work, but I still feel a sense of injustice for them. Larrikin Music are just bloodsuckers, Dire Straits once sang about "Money for Nothing (and your cheques for free)", that's what Larrikin are getting.

  • i dont hear it myself how they r Similar lol...i go to gudies and we still sing kooaburra haha and i love world down under no one acc cares that it "stole" some of the lines from kooaburra the band got ripped off like

  • I'm sure MOW blew all their money a long time ago. Can you go bankrupt in Australia? If yes, then I'd recommend the members all file for bankruptcy and laugh at the record companies like a kookaburra.

  • I'm sure MOW blew all their money a long time ago. Can you go bankrupt in Australia? If yes, then I'd recommend the members all file for bankruptcy and laugh at the record companies like a kookaburra.

  • I'm sure MOW blew all their money a long time ago.  Can you go bankrupt in Australia? If yes, then I'd recommend the members all file for bankruptcy and laugh at the record companies like a kookaburra.

  • I'm sure MOW blew all their money a long time ago. Can you go bankrupt in Australia? If yes, then I'd recommend the members all file for bankruptcy and laugh at the record companies like a kookaburra.

  • I think it would be a good idea to sue the lawyers for ruining the song.

    If we club together i think we could be in with a chance.

  • i dont get it

  • It's a shame for the band. Both songs come from Australia. How patriotic!

    Terrible. Hopefully Men at Work will stay together and recoup their losses.

  • bullshit

  • the judge was quite obviously not a musician and tone deaf....otherwise he would have realized that the riff in men at work is in an entirely different key

  • Substantial? Judges are supposed to be clever people. How in hell did this guy get to be a Judge? There are other songs that have parts that sound like the kookaburra song. This judgement was a joke. I haven't met anyone who supports it.

  • It's only a sequence of 11 notes that's same. If you take the 11 notes, divided by the total number of notes in that song, or the duration occupied by the 11 notes over the duration of the entire song, you don't get 60%.

    The only thing this verdict proves is that judge Peter Jacobson is an effing retard.

  • You said it right, buddy! I'm with Team Men At Work! If I meet Colin, I'll tell him this. You and your bandmates are five sweet Australians with the power and the courage to tell all that "Down Under" was and still is an original tune! I'm right beside you all the way, Mate.

  • Glory hunting judge. Or complete music idiot

    whose music understanding is limited to short sequences of notes played on a recorder in primary school.

  • 1. There are only a certain number of notes on a flute and in the western scale, therefore it's extremely likely that it was done unknowingly

    2. I would think that 30 years of being unrecognised would constitute that the infringement is not of a recognisable portion

    3 If you break any song up enough you end up with two note intervals which are used literally every other western song. Even scaling this back, and introducing rhythm, surely there would still equate to thousands of potential cases?

  • hmmm... think its time to upload some Men at Work albums...

  • Shame on you Australians,is this what we have become and by the way,i cant heae it and no one has for 30 yrs, up until now,go figure!

  • You can't hear it? It's utterly obvious, but the REASON it was not noticed for 30 years is that it was unintentional, subconcious, innocuous. Influenced. Iv anyone wants to sue, it should be Paul McCartney suing The Jam for their sonfg START which is IDENTICAL to Taxman. (see my videos)

  • @LordInksworth Geoge Harrison wrote Taxman.

    If youwere to ask 12 people at random(same number as a jury if they could distinguish between the two;my bet is they would not find in favour of Larrikin.Larrikin just tried it on and got lucky.

  • Comment removed

  • Comment removed

  • Shoot the band

  • Smug lawyer? Surely not.

    Lawyer: second only to the leech

  • NewsOnABC, Not just another video.

  • What a joke. If it blatantly copied Marion Sinclair's work she would have said something about it herself. Even if it was simmilar she was probably a kind hearted soul who would have been flattered to have influenced this huge hit, with no thought of financial gain for herself. This in contrast to the smug Lawyer in this clip.

  • This is total bullshit. Men at Work just got royally fucked.

  • The woman who made the song died. Now it's just greedy pricks trying to get free money.

  • I'll give thumbs up to that.

  • 60%? That's fucking cheeky for a tiny little bit of the song that sounds remotely similar. This is taking the piss!

  • Are you kidding me?? That's the biggest stretch I have ever seen in terms of copyright infringement on a song.

  • Comment removed

  • do you see the Gay community having a go at Larrikin music for having a go at GAY in that song, counter claim LOL

  • That's the shittiest part, the chorus is what makes the song. are vegemite going to sue for using the word vegemite, judge, gay your life must be, sue me.

  • that fun

  • this judge must be some old death dumb ass muthafucka, or hes in on it some how. wat a retarded fuk

  • i bet that judge owns the rights to that fucking kookaburra shite

  • Both these pieces of music are shit!! Stop fuckin playing them!!

  • Beef Jerky 3 is right you know

  • what a bunch of bullshit...the judge must be fucking the lawyer....you know like most faggot aussie judges.

  • I hear "Come On Eileen." Watch out Dexy - you're next!

  • They should have given some credit for using someone elses work instead of getting all the money, fame and credit.

  • I don't really hear the similarity. I'm not particularly a fan of Men at Work, but I think they got screwed.

  • shouldn't it be the record company that has to pay, not the band itself.

  • Who the fuck cares about that stupid song anyway? They act like it's actually worth something. lol Wow.

  • fucking bullshit. money money money that's all its about.

  • Maybe someone should check the judges bank account to see if there was a sizeable deposit made recently. Or maybe he just didn't like the song or the band.

    Either way, I hope they can appeal the judgement in that country.

  • I have no doubt that Men and Work ripped part of the Kook song for Down Under. However, I don't think it is right that Men and Work has to pay 40 to 60 percent of their royalties. The tune was just a small part of overall song and writing.

  • Give me a break! this is all about Money! Not artists rights. MONEY! You know. the thing thats become most ppl's God.

  • Copy right laws are NOT bullshit. If you're an artist of ANY SORT you would feel very different. I know of a person who saw one of his art works on a mass produced T shirt of which he got no money for. Imagine if it was your story, illustration, game or music and someone bigger than you with more lawyers took your shit and made millions...Oh now its different right?

  • You sound like you're arguing against yourself. Copyright laws are BS because big companies and people who have a L OTof money are usually the only ones able to enforce and exploit the copyrights.

    Most individuals can not do very much to enforce their "intellectual property". Additionally, so many copyrights lawsuits like this are just ridiculous, especially on movies and music.

    Oh, and the copyright term is ridiculously too long.

  • @thejetshowlive, it depends on how much of a wanker you are...

    I made a song years ago when I was in a band and this guy who used to jam with us joined a new band, then he started playing my song live at venues... I think it's awesome, a song I made was liked by someone and now is being played on a stage! It makes me feel good.

    If your life is all about money, that's your problem...

    Music is a hobby. You want money? Get a job...

  • @83uoykcuf - Wanker? Whats with the name calling? Sure music is a "hobby"…that is always said by anyone not making money at it. But watch what happens to all your happiness if that other band takes a portion of your song and makes huge money from it and goes #1. I'm sure you will "feel so good" when they reap all the benefits from your brain child. My life isnt all about money but there is sense of Right and Wrong. Walk a mile in a successful artists shoes and then see how you feel.

  • @thejetshowlive I'm pretty sure the lady who wrote the Kookaburra song was never bothered by it. Now that she's dead it's just a bunch of suits running around trying to grab money... Every job has it's ups and downs, and the downs of being a musician is that it's not a real job. I'm in a band but there's no way I'd expect to make a living out of it... I'd rather have a more steady job where I'm guaranteed a certain income. It's just the way life is. Want guaranteed money? Get a job, sorry.

  • Thats why the law is in place. Having said that I think that this is WAY EXCESSIVE and doesnt warrant MILLIONS of Dollars...not on a song that got heavy air play and was #1 THIRTY YRS AGO! So NOW you want MILLIONS? Like I said its very vauge...its not like when Vanilla Ice stole the bass like from Bowie/Mercury's Under Pressure. That was BLATANT!

  • what people dont know is that most top 40 pop songs all over the world are based on only 8 different chord progressions.

    so everyone can start suing everyone and win!!

  • The judge is clearly full of Koala Shit!

  • This is bullshit. Copyright law is bullshit, too.

    Businesses like Disney have warped copyright law to serve their own interests. Disney has no problem using other people's stories to make movies but god forbid you draw a picture of a 100 year old rat without their permission.

    Life +70 years? Not likely. They'll just extend copyright law again.

  • this is Bull shit

  • So any asshole can go out, buy the copyright to an old song, listen for something similar in a recent or current song and then sue the shit out of some random musician.

    What a load of bullshit!

  • How many songs out there "borrow" a bit of this or that culturally-significant music? Men at Work probably grew up hearing that little ditty, and naturally, unconsciously incorporated a snatch of it in this iconic song about Australia. That's no more a deliberate infringement than if they had used a lick from "Waltzing Matilda."

    This is about opportunism and greed. ='[.]''=

  • Ts-hh. They can go get fucked. Composers used to borrow all the time from others, there wasn't any 'copy-fucking-right' back then. It was a sign of prestige.

  • That judge couldn't tell a musical note from a bank note.

  • Larrikin is gay...

  • I don't see how playing a flute line is plagiarism. So they have to fork over 60% of their royalties for a few seconds of a song? What BS. Colin is right. It's all about money to this dirtbag. And it only took them 30 years to come to this conclusion. I'd hunt that guy down and split his wig.

  • This is bs... the people who sued them should be shot then and there citizenship to Australia be REVOKED!... bastards greedy money grabbers

  • What!? That old song doesn't sound anything like "Down Under"! That is ridiculous! The judge must have been high as fuck!

  • @fatsotomuscles

    nonsense is it

    and if so it would be reminiscive adopting a famous -childrens-song-hymn whithin a new

    pop hymn.

  • this is FUCKEN BULLSHIT...FUCK YOU LARRIKIN! FUCK YOU!!!!

  • For those of you who don't hear the the similarity, you have to do what the judge did:

    Fill your ears and your head with cotton, and then listen to the playback of both songs side by side. You really won't be able to tell the difference!

  • fuck this asshole

  • yes it does sound 'like' it but at the same time it is about 10 notes (if that) in about a 30-40 second instrumental.... they are being picky and money hungry to be honest... especially since they bought the copy right for the kookaburra song and only now are suing because of a tv show they saw in 2007

  • what a load of shit. Fucking beurocrats

  • Bullshit.

  • Who holds the copyright now?

    They also mention Vegemite

    don't tell Kraft

  • Larrikin Music Publishing Pty Ltd

  • FUCK U JUDGES FUCK U Kookaburra U FUCKING GREEDY CUNT

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