Men at Work accused of plagiarism over 'Down Under'

Australian rock band Men at Work have been accused of plagiarising their 1980s hit Down Under from a popular Girl Guide ditty.

A music publisher in Sydney has claimed in a law suit that the flute solo in Down Under was copied from the children's classic Kookaburra Sits in The Old Gum Tree, composed by Marion Sinclair, a Melbourne music teacher, in 1934.

Lawyers for Larrikin Music are sueing Sony BMG, EMI and the two writers of Down Under - Colin Hay and Ron Strykert. They allege that the song reproduced "a substantial part" of Ms Sinclair's composition without permission or the payment of royalties.



The rock song, which describes Australia as a place "where beer does flow and men chunder", (vomit), became the unoffocial national anthem of Australia during the early 1980s and has featured prominently at major sporting events such as the 1983 Americas Cup and the 2000 Sydney Olympics. A far cry from Ms Sinclair's innocent children's song, Down Under celebrates the life of an Australian hippie who explores the world with the help of beer and Vegemite sandwiches.

Counsel for Sony BMG, EMI and the two band members dispute that the claim that Larrikin ever legally owned the copyright to Kookaburra Sits in The Old Gum Tree. They claim that the publishing rights were given to the Girl Guide Association of Victoria as part of a song competition in the 1930s.

Larrikin Music says that it acquired copyright to the Kookaburra song in 1990. It launched legal action in 2007 after the issue was raised in a popular television show about popular music.