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Men At Work Ordered To Fork Over Five Percent Of “Down Under” Royalites

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July 6th, 2010 by Castina

Tagged as: Today's New Music

Almost three decades after the song Down Under topped the charts, Men At Work and label EMI have been ordered to share some of the profits from the hit, Spinner.com said Tuesday.

The band’s breakout hit was penned by songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert in 1981. However, a legal ruling earlier in the year found that the songwriters Hay and Strykert had breached copyright by borrowing a flute riff when they recorded “Down Under.” This week, a court in Sydney ordered the writers and their label to hand over 5% of the royalties to the publisher of the children’s song “Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree.”

Larrikin Music Publishing had been seeking up to 60% of the song royalties, but a Federal Court judge said he considered “the figures put forward by Larrikin to be excessive, overreaching and unrealistic.”


       



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