This is not a win for the little guy

In 1983, Men At Work's 'Land Down Under' was a defacto national anthem. On incessant rotation as the backing track to Hawkie and Alan Bond's gauche, televised piss-up session following that year's big sporting victory, the America's Cup win, the song dripped with Australiana.

It didn't take a genius to spot the playful 'Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree' references in the flute line. As a nine year old, forced to screech along to Aussie folk classics of that song's ilk on the recorder - songs like 'The Old Bullock Dray' - by well-meaning and patriotic teachers, I was well aware of the connection and for years assumed the homage to that particularly Australian refrain was common knowledge for anyone who had half an ear for a tune and any affinity for popular culture at all.

So my response to this 'revelation' on Spicks and Specks many years later was 'well, duh!'. My response to the subsequent lawsuit, however, has been disgust.

The song’s author was still alive in the early 80s, and, it has been said by Colin Hay, raised no objection to ‘Land Down Under’ at a time when saturation coverage of the America’s Cup (with the song as a constant accompaniment) must have ensured that she would have heard it. After she passed away, Larrikin Publishing purchased the rights to the song, presumably to reap commercial benefits from the use of a song as common to Australian ears as ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ is to Americans.

Larrikin now awaits the court’s ruling on the extent of its windfall – and stands to gain a fortune without having contributed to the creative process of either song in any way. Curiously, for someone who OWNS the allegedly infringed tune, Larrikin’s director was only alerted to the similarities by the aforementioned Spicks and Specks episode.

Folk music is part of the creative lexicon from which we all draw inspiration as a culture. It is part of a shared history. Once an artist dies, or copyright expires with the passage of time (fifty years), that artist bequeaths a legacy to culture.

How many films and books have taken ‘inspiration’ from the long-dead Jane Austen? How many Shakespearean ideas have found their way into cultural expression over the centuries since his death? Where would Paul Simon be if there were limits on the appropriation of the old folk tune that inspires ‘Scarborough Fair’? Does Larrikin now plan to sue ‘Kookaburra’s’ most famous interpreter, Rolf Harris?

I heard a breakfast announcer on community radio this morning try to rationalise the blatant opportunism of a non-artist exploiting the opportunity for a windfall by saying ‘it’s a win for the little guy because Larrikin is an independent label, and Men At Work were signed to Sony’. I disagree. In situations such as this, the artist, and not the businessman, is always the little guy.