Comments
thesaga t1_jdu6n2j wrote
Correct. The “plagiarised” portion is the short flute riff after the chorus, which mimics the exact melody of the nursery rhyme’s first line: “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree”
pineappleshnapps t1_jdumtbg wrote
Lmao, that sucks. They probably did it to be more Australian. A ton of songs have little odes to other songs in them.
opm881 t1_jdv0ecg wrote
I mean, they were Australian, they didn’t need to try and be “more Australian”.
objectsinmirrormaybe t1_je49xm6 wrote
In the film clip a band member was sitting on the branch of an old gum tree while playing the kookaburra tune on his flutes. Kind of drawing attention to what they were doing.
Plasticcaz t1_jdulw50 wrote
Kookaburra sits on the electric wire
Jumping up and down with his pants on fire
Burn, kookaburra, burn
Kookaburra, hot your pants must be
GwenGunn t1_jdvfdp3 wrote
Please tell me this is an edgy Australian kid’s edit like the “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” or “Joy to the World, Barney’s Dead” from America.
Plasticcaz t1_jdxfhod wrote
Yeah, it absolutely is. I remember this one more than the real version though.
GwenGunn t1_jdxkgwk wrote
Amazing.
oakydoke t1_jdt9vfv wrote
Nah, that’s it
boofadoof t1_jdu1t56 wrote
I remember reading that rhyme in one of the first Magic Tree House books.
Landlubber77 t1_jdstlgf wrote
"Somebody served us papers, but Who Could It Beeee Now?!
FlatPineappleSociety t1_jdt8vgp wrote
Who can it be knocking at my door?
Make no sound, tip-toe across the floor
Actual-Doughnut4105 t1_jdsuehv wrote
Be good Be good Be good, Be good Be good Be good, Be good Be good Be good, be good Joohhhhhnny
249ba36000029bbe9749 t1_jdujaix wrote
Perhaps...it's a mistake.
m_Pony t1_jdv1f7k wrote
and now they can't get to sleep...
Landlubber77 t1_jdv1sxz wrote
Thinking about the implications
Super_Turnip t1_jdt7uoo wrote
Greg Ham, the flautist who included the two bars of disputed music, was distraught over having caused problems for the band. Colin James Hay later said he thought Ham's profound depression contributed to his death. Hay made it clear he never blamed Greg Ham for anything and was himself deeply distressed by Ham's death, as Ham was a friend from childhood on.
nowhereman136 t1_jdt0dzf wrote
I dont hear it
Jingocat t1_jdt29ik wrote
It's one very short lick. It was included to be a tribute to the Australian folk legend. Then people got greedy.
DavoTB t1_jdttebr wrote
The lawsuit was based on the recurring flute lick, played by Greg Ham. The song’s writer, singer Colin James Hay stated he felt the stress of the lawsuit led to the early death of Ham around the time of the lawsuit.
beetrootsandwiches t1_jdtzpqk wrote
Poor Greg Ham. This story was ultimately very sad.
bouchert t1_jdva6nm wrote
I wish someone could have helped him. By most accounts, he was a lovely person and a clearly talented musician, but he took the loss so personally and I think he really felt vilified.
beetrootsandwiches t1_je2rpxh wrote
I remember people started Facebook groups and pages in support of him at the time as the copyright thing seemed so petty and the publishers wanted so much. They all faced ruin. The whole story is really fucked to be honest all cos greed.
Bonneville865 t1_jdx5rph wrote
I’ve never heard anyone refer to Colin Hay using his middle name. Is there another famous Colin Hay?
DavoTB t1_jdxaygc wrote
For reasons I don’t know, he referred to himself on releases as Colin James Hay during the mid-1980’s. He is familiarly known as Colin Hay.
Bonneville865 t1_jdxixkv wrote
Interesting.
I've seen him twice on his current tour, and he's just going by "Colin Hay."
Fenrir101 t1_jdt5oi3 wrote
It's not in the original, it's just become "traditional" to play a single bar at the end instead of the "real" ending when doing a cover. It matches and sound's better in my opinion than the real ending.
hypatiatextprotocol t1_jdty9g9 wrote
Not sure what you're talking about: it's a melody in the original. It's in the first eight bars and repeats throughout the song.
Worth_Fondant3883 t1_jdu2xz2 wrote
It was a crock, brought on by some multinational, just out for a buck imo. There are only so many notes, so many chords and so many combinations of them. The entire music industry is based on this sort of thing, artists know this and consequently tolerate minor semblences. People who have no other talent, tend to clutch at this sort of thing. Thanks a fuckin lot Adam Hills, for pointing this out BTW
Riptide360 t1_jdt0d31 wrote
I wish we would rework the music licensing model to reduce lawsuits and make it easier for artists to earn royalties. We already pay music subscription service fees maybe a right to remix licenses where you can borrow freely from the library in exchange for revenue share.
pohatu771 t1_jdtrnag wrote
The license allows creators (or their publishers, whether they are in control of that or not) control over their work and who it is associated with.
I wouldn’t want my work to be freely available to whatever random person wants to incorporate it into theirs, even if they are sharing revenue. I want to know it isn’t being tied to a person or message I dislike.
wotmate t1_jduuo6s wrote
Almost 80 years after the fact and you long dead, you wouldn't care.
pohatu771 t1_jdv8tf8 wrote
Someone would.
If some neo-Nazi group used “That’ll Be The Day” over images of a Jewish president, I think Buddy Holly’s wife would have an issue with that.
(Not that Universal, who owns the recording, or Paul McCartney, who owns the publishing would ever allow that.)
wotmate t1_jdxhr8b wrote
That's the point though, it's not theirs, they just own it because of Disney's copyright system.
Beethoven would be losing his shit if he knew that school children were mangling his music with recorders, but he's long dead. Copyright, like patents, exist so that the original creator can make money from their creations, not so that some troll can sue people long after the creator is dead.
remarkablemayonaise t1_jdvdtwq wrote
Wagner wasn't as much of a Nazi as the Nazis made him out to be. That's the risk of art, if you make something public property (even with licenses) someone will take it to an extreme. The English St George's flag suffers a similar fate. Is the family of St George going to start chasing the EDF?
pohatu771 t1_jdvjaq4 wrote
That’s the whole point of the license - it isn’t public property. It is owned by one entity and licensed to others, based on their proposed use of it.
The flag of a country is, generally, public property.
Riptide360 t1_jdts5zg wrote
Are you on Apple Music? Post a link and I'll add it to my creator playlist of music to play.
AttonJRand t1_jdv4hyy wrote
In practice it gives mega corporation music labels that control, over the artists even.
Which is why they lobby so heavily, and try to spread the above commenters narrative.
pohatu771 t1_jdv84xl wrote
The solution to that is to help composers retain publishing rights, not open the gates for everyone to do whatever they want as long as the composer gets paid.
Songwriters frequently have their own publishing company. They share some of the money to run it, but retain control.
pineappleshnapps t1_jdumxg4 wrote
Artists and writers make next to nothing off subscription fees, I doubt this would help them much, and you can already allow someone to use your material, or license other peoples work.
PyrrhoTheSkeptic t1_jdstrs5 wrote
I think if I were writing music, I would willfully "steal" from composers who are in the public domain from being old, like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc., so that no one could claim a copyright violation, since no one can copyright those works. I would, of course, give them credit in the song, say it was composed by Bach and me, or Mozart, Beethoven, and me, or whatever.
And I would keep track of what bits I took from which pieces of music, so I could prove it in court that it originated in something that cannot be under copyright, in case someone else is claiming a copyright on a similar piece of music.
It must be very annoying to write a song and find out there is something that is similar that someone else wrote, so that one can get sued over it.
Roman_____Holiday t1_jdsweuh wrote
The difference between inspired by and ripping off is thinner than anyone likes to admit. Almost all music written is derivative, truly original music is honored and admired specifically because it defies that standard. It is horrible that artists that create original work are set upon by over-zealous content owners and their lawyers but it is worth mentioning that digital music and the widely available technology for sampling has made "legit" infringement super easy and so likely super common.
PrismosPickleJar t1_jdszr0z wrote
gwaydms t1_jdtqdsu wrote
John Lennon said as much when talking about some of ELO's songs (particularly Mister Kingdom, which borrows a few bars from Across the Universe). He grinned and said something like "Let's not talk about all the stuff I've nicked."
pohatu771 t1_jdtqzhl wrote
He had very famously been sued (and lost) over Come Together. Part of the settlement was recording some Chuck Berry songs, which ultimately became the Rock and Roll album.
(I’m not sure how he was the one in court when Come Together, like everything else, was a Lennon-McCartney credit.)
pineappleshnapps t1_jdun34o wrote
They credited both, even when one wrote the song from what I remember. Maybe he knew more about how it was written.
BailoutBill t1_jdt0ubv wrote
I was pretty shocked when I learned how much John Williams does exactly this.
Serious_Guy_ t1_jduvbs0 wrote
Have you heard the story about Paul McCartney not recording Yesterday for months because the whole song came to him at once, so he thought he had subconsciously heard it somewhere, and spent months trying to find it?
CombImpressive3416 t1_jdth126 wrote
Wouldn't you need to record your own version of the music though? Like the original sheet music might be public domain but that doesn't mean the recorded version released by the orchestra is.
pohatu771 t1_jdtr78w wrote
Writing music and incorporating a piece of someone else’s composition doesn’t mean you’re using a recording at all.
pineappleshnapps t1_jdvxjw0 wrote
Actually, sort of. If you record a version of a public domain song, you don’t own the song, but you own the master for the recording, and you’ll get paid for it.
bouchert t1_jdv9406 wrote
I feel like the consideration that ultimately made the most difference in deciding in the plaintiffs' favor was this rule about including a "significant portion" of one work within another, or something like that. And indeed, the notes in question make up fully half the kookaburra song. But it's so short, I feel like there needs to be a limit. Otherwise you can have people laying claim to whole songs consisting of trivial musical notes or solitary measures. And even if the right short combination of notes can be distinctive, the tune they were fighting over was not the sort that leaps out at you. It went largely unnoticed for 26 years until an Australian quiz show, based on a staffer's original research (as opposed to settled fact), asked contestants to name the similarity.
RompaStompa07 t1_je894lm wrote
For what it's worth, I noticed it the first time I heard it. The original was in a piano instruction book that my sister had in the 70's. 🙂
[deleted] t1_jdv10vb wrote
[removed]
D3monVolt t1_jdv5ac3 wrote
Listened to that nursery rhyme now. It qs sconfusing more than anything qith the dude singing over his own text in multiple displaced layers.
But I heard no musical similarities
wayfinder t1_jdt47qu wrote
the comma in your title is wrong, I think?
JimBean t1_jdtqr1r wrote
It is, but you can't edit a title.
mac-mcpoyle t1_jduljq0 wrote
Anyone watch Gullah Gullah island?
gimmeafuckinname t1_jdt43cp wrote
I learned that rhyme in Florida public school in the 70's.
Kookaburra sits in an old gum tree Merry Merry King of the Bush is he. Laugh Kookaburra Laugh Kookaburra Gay your life must be.
Or something like that -.....it's been a minute.