Men at Work lose plagiarism case

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Men at Work may need to get back to work to pay their legal bills.

The big news today is that Scottish Aussie pop combo Men At Work have been found guilty of plagiarism and a federal court in Sydney ordered compensation to be paid. The old school-exam style crime pertains to their 1981 pop anthem "Down Under" which depicts a backpacker's travels around the world.

The song, seen in some countries as the only hit of a one hit wonder is synonymous with Aussie pride and is played at any event mildly connected to Australia - the closing of the Syndney Olympics, the unofficial anthem of the Australian team that won the Americas Cup in 1983, an iconic Qantas ad and  Australia Day celebrations on any given year.

The passage in despute is the famous flute line that runs throughout the song. It has been deemed this is a direct lift of the children's song "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree," written by Marion Sinclair in 1934.

Music copyright lawyer Stephen Digby told ABC Online he was surprised by the court's decision. "I think it could have gone either way but my initial reaction was always that this was going to be a very hard case for (publisher) Larrikin to win," he said.

With a win in the bag for Larrikin, a court hearing is to take place later this month to determine exactly how much of the royalties for the song Men At Work songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert will have to pay back, as well as and record companies Sony BMG Music Entertainment and EMI Songs Australia. The figure bandied about at the moment is 40-60%.

Let's hope Vegemite don't come calling for unlicenced use of a brand name.

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• Men At Work lose plagiarism case (news.bbc.co.uk)
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BMG are brickin' it

Anyone wondering why BMG Europe are releasing an Elvis single a week for the foreseeable future?

Seems their European copyrights are due to expire on large amounts of his material and while they petition governments to extend copyrights, they're rushing as much crap into the charts as possible to make as much money in as little time as they can... just in case.

Without ammendments to the law, Elvis' track "That's All Right" has fallen into the public domain as of 1 January 2005, so play it where and when you want and you don't have to pay anyone for the privledge!

As it currently works, the copyright law is as such:

- In the United States, under the 1998 Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, sound recordings are protected for 95 years from the day of recording. For recordings done post-1976, coverage is the artist's life plus 70 years.

- In most of the European Union, the duration is 50 years after the first release of a sound recording.

Link: Elvisnews.com

Copyright infringment... and everyone's happy!

Cult fave US indie band The Postal Service ("Such Great Heights") got themselves into a bit of bother lately, when the USPS - that's the United States Postal Service to you and me - decided to issue their label SubPop with a cease-and-desist order.

According to a report from the New York Times, "though [the USPS] were very, very flattered that we were using the name, they need to enforce their copyright." Not exactly the screw everyone ethos of punk.

The problem seems to have been solved with the USPS "granting a free license to use the name in exchange for working to promote using the mail". Apparently all future copies of the Postal Service's albums will mention this arrangement and the USPS will in return sell copies of the albums in their outlets.

Sometimes things do work out for everyone involved.