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Who? Greg Ham was the flautist from the Australian band "Men at Work" who had a massive hit with the tune "Down Under" in the 80s.

The tragic thing about this is that the band was deemed to have copied the riff. That weighed heavily on Greg Ham, in the end too heavily. Many musicians are fragile souls. I think it goes with the territory.

This guy was a great musician. He didn't just play flute but a whole range of other instruments and he is a sad loss to music. I have included a link, hope it is visible.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/how-t ... 1xa5w.html

Poor guy. It looks like every aspect of his life came undone after the court's decision. I wouldn't wish that kind of unhappiness on anyone.

Man that is so sad, I really believe this guy was hard done by, a great musician, who also wanted to help kids learn music. Yet the Bastards who took him to to court had no empathy whatsoever. Sucks!! RIP Greg you have a lot of follloweres who believe!

Just saw this now, Tony. Funny, I grew up singing Kookaburra in grade school and Girls Scouts. I have even sung it to my daughter in more recent years. Never, ever have I noticed a similarity between that tune and Down Under.

Regardless of whether or not he "copied" it (and my gut says no way), it's a terrible shame that it had such a huge impact on his life at the end.

Suzi

I agree with you Suzi, I never heard any similarity whatsoever. Usually you can hear the similarity and at least understand why the case for plagiarism exists. In this case I never could. Terribly sad consequence to one of Australia's most loved pop songs.

Tony- this case is VERY different from, for example, Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" and Queen's "Under Pressure."

I love the Decemberists, and I love this album, but I was struck by the similarity between its intro and Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive (which seems far closer of a match than Down Under and Kookaburra). What do you think?









Believe me- I'm not encouraging Bon Jovi to sue The Decemberists! I'm sure there are plenty of differences between those songs (frankly, I'm not even sure they're in the same key). But it seems to me that sometimes certain "bits" of music are just part of the collective consciousness. They sound good, so people play them.

Wow. I didn't even need to listen to Bon Jovi. It sounds very similar to me. I think though that you're right, certain progressions sound good and get used consciously or unconsciously.

With the Vanilla Ice "rip off" I'm pretty certain at that time artists were lifting sections from known tunes consciously. I don't think there is any attempt by Mr Ice to pass it off as original. (By the way I know that "Ice Baby" tune...or at least the lyrics word for word...very sad. Particularly the bit about having my rag-top down so my hair can blow....those were the days).