SYDNEY, March 30 (UPI) -- An Australian court has rejected an appeal of its previous ruling that the band Men at Work's 1980s hit "Down Under" was, in part, lifted from another song.
The court found last year the famous flute riff from the song was unmistakably taken from the popular Australian song "Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gumtree" -- written by Melbourne school teacher Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides jamboree in 1934. It became very popular in the years that followed and has been sung by generations of Australian children.
Larrikin Music owns the rights to the song and had been seeking up to 60 percent of "Down Under's" profits as compensation.
Men at Work was ordered by the court to pay royalties to Larrikin Music but in his decision last year, Justice Peter Jacobsen wrote that Larrikin's compensation request as "excessive, over-reaching and unrealistic."
"Although the quotation from Kookaburra in the 1981 recording is -- in my view -- sufficient to constitute an infringement of copyright, other factors are to be taken into account in assessing the percentage interest payable in a hypothetical licensing bargain," he said.
