Theme and copywrite

[newcs]

There is a bit of a strange court case going on at the moment. A relative of the person who wrote the song "Kookaburra" (sits in the old gum tree) is trying to sue the group Men at Work claiming they used the tune in the song "Down Under". After listening to the song carefully, the line played with the flute does slightly resemble "Kookaburra", but thats about it.
What I think is so stupid is that the song "Down Under" is older than me and "Kookaburra" is older than my parents, why wasn't this brought up 25 years ago. If such a trivial matter like this can go to court, where do our clubs sit with their theme songs, Most of them are from borrowed tunes. Could we one day have some frenchman knocking on the door of the Brisbane Loins saying "My great-grandfather wrote that song, so pay up". How many footy teams that have the prefix "St" use the "Saints go marching" theme song.
Where do the AFL clubs sit legally on such a matter.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

the AFL theme songs are slightly different to the originals, meaning there is nothing stopping a club using it (much like that madonna song a couple of yrs back which was a blatant abba rip-off).

The kookaburra guy is just looking for some money because he is probably broke.

 

[Quinten Kennedy]

I'm unsure of the length of time, but I believe copyrighted music ends up in the public domain after a certain number of decades. Meaning anyone can sample or reproduce it.

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

Copyright on songs expires a certain number of years after the writer's death. The tunes used by clubs are old enough for the copyright to have expired.

I'm not sure how the Men At Work action has been allowed to take so long, I would have thought there's a limitation period issue.

 

[D Mitchell]

Didn't George Harrison have a similar proble with the author of He's so fine for his My sweet Lord ?

 

[Tex_21]

Call Jet and see how long Iggy Pop owns his music for-they should know.

Or Wolfmother and Sabbath/Zeppelin/AC/DC/KISS etc

 

[Donakebab]

Such a stupid case, ownership of the Kookaburra Song wasn't even determined until a month or two ago. It was originally owned by Girl Guides Victoria, but when the original composer died the copyright went to her publisher.

It's such a joke, there is a similarity, but to say that Land Down Under is a copy is ludicrous.

 

[invinciBlues]

I'm unsure of the length of time, but I believe copyrighted music ends up in the public domain after a certain number of decades. Meaning anyone can sample or reproduce it.

Isn't the "Happy Birthday to you" song still copyrighted though?

 

[Quinten Kennedy]

Isn't the "Happy Birthday to you" song still copyrighted though?

Can of worms, this one.

The rights are owned by some company, I can't remember which. But the validity of those rights is questionable. Copyright was registered long after the song was written, and the people credited for writing it, didn't actually write the melody, which was lifted from a much older song.

If the rights are held, they will expire.

 

[Dawson]

Copyright on songs expires a certain number of years after the writer's death. The tunes used by clubs are old enough for the copyright to have expired.

I'm not sure how the Men At Work action has been allowed to take so long, I would have thought there's a limitation period issue.

50 years I think

 

[Miguel Sanchez]

70 years under the current Act (just looked it up), though I think under previous Acts it was less.

 

[Plogs]

Can of worms, this one.

The rights are owned by some company, I can't remember which. But the validity of those rights is questionable. Copyright was registered long after the song was written, and the people credited for writing it, didn't actually write the melody, which was lifted from a much older song.

If the rights are held, they will expire.

Time Warner AOL ?

 

[theyellowsash]

if rhianna can take the music from tainted love and just change the words, our club songs will be just fine.

 

[Quinten Kennedy]

Time Warner AOL ?

Time-Warner, that's the one.

I probably should have remembered that.

 

[Quinten Kennedy]

if rhianna can take the music from tainted love and just change the words, our club songs will be just fine.

If she did, she'd have had permission to do so. Or she'd be up s*** creek.

 

[The Old Dark Navy's]

Sooner or later, all music that is written is going to sound like a snippet of another song, unless you come up with a whole new sound. Unless the music that sounds similar was the main reason for the success of the song, then it is ridiculous to bleat about it. If you had a rift in your song like the opening rifts in Smoke on the Water, or Money for Nothing, then I can understand the angst, but to pick out a innocuous section of the music where you get a similarity for a few seconds ... seriously they should get a life. These people too must be looking for subliminal messages by playing records backwards, pretty much the same thing.

 

[Rawhead]

For legal purposes, if you use less than two bars from a musical phrase, copyright cannot be invoked no matter how old the song. FWIW, there are MANY highly identifiable musical phrases of two bars length or less.



Of course this is null and void for club songs cause as mentioned the copyright validity period has expired.

 

[snrub]

the AFL theme songs are slightly different to the originals, meaning there is nothing stopping a club using it (much like that madonna song a couple of yrs back which was a blatant abba rip-off).

The kookaburra guy is just looking for some money because he is probably broke.

Oh my God, could you be any more wrong when it comes to music copyrights?

 

[snrub]

if rhianna can take the music from tainted love and just change the words, our club songs will be just fine.

The writer of Tainted Love gets credit and royalties for the Rhianna song. As for Madonna, she obtained permission from ABBA to use their riff. Football themes are protected by the expiration of rights of old songs.

 

[Mitchell Madness]

Oh my God, could you be any more wrong when it comes to music copyrights?

ive actually studied it, and in a case like that where the beat is the same, unless it is identical, it makes it extremely difficult to be prosecuted.

Another example The Living End - Wake Up.

the music is clearly a Pink Floyd song (i am not a fan of floyd, cant remember the song).

 

[Sigh RolleyEyes]

imo part of the flute riff in Down Under is a deliberate and obvious quote from the kookaburra song. sad that someone would try to sue over that though -- in this case it's more of a tribute than a rip off

 

[Plogs]

Sooner or later, all music that is written is going to sound like a snippet of another song, unless you come up with a whole new sound. Unless the music that sounds similar was the main reason for the success of the song, then it is ridiculous to bleat about it. If you had a rift in your song like the opening rifts in Smoke on the Water, or Money for Nothing, then I can understand the angst, but to pick out a innocuous section of the music where you get a similarity for a few seconds ... seriously they should get a life. These people too must be looking for subliminal messages by playing records backwards, pretty much the same thing.

Riff.

 

[tigers_of_old_08]

imo part of the flute riff in Down Under is a deliberate and obvious quote from the kookaburra song. sad that someone would try to sue over that though -- in this case it's more of a tribute than a rip off[/quote]

And that's exactly the way I viewed it too, but it appears the owner prefers dollars to compliments!

 

[witsend]

Most AFL theme songs are "Public Domain" and therefore copyright free (eg Bizet's "March Of The Toreadors" from his opera Carmen is used as the music for Geelong's theme).

 

[enosis7]

It's not that simple...

The actual melodies comprising the theme songs are one thing and for the reason witsend gave, if you performed the melodies yourself or made recordings of them, it is unlikely to lead to infringement of copyright for the older club songs.

But copyright also subsists in both the actual sound recordings themselves and the lyrics. A new period of copyright would have commenced when the lyrics were written and the sound recordings were made. Lyrics are a "literary work" and copyright in them would be for 70 years after the death of the author.

Copyright in sound recordings has a duration of 70 years from first publication. Most recordings of the club songs were made in the last 70 years, so copyright will continue to subsist. So, if you sold burnt copies of CDs of the official club song recordings, this will likely be an infringement of copyright.