World Blogs

Why classical music gets swept under the red carpet.

Does Men At Work’s Australian classic Down Under really infringe copyright in the equally iconic Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree? As many Australian musicians and lawyers are probably aware, this question has been vigorously litigated in the Federal Court for the last three years. It’s common ground that Down Under’s flute line quotes the first two phrases of Kookaburra: the question was whether that quotation constituted a copyright infringement, and, if so, what an appropriate measure of damages would be.