EMI Music has decided to appeal against a ruling that Men At Work plagiarized a Girl Guide flute refrain. On February 4, an Australian court agreed that the band had stolen a flute riff first written 70 years ago. The controversy centers around Men At Work’s 1983 hit “Down Under,” which features the suspect woodwind instrument.
EMI argues that any similarities between Men At Work’s flute and Marion Sinclair’s (who penned the riff in 1934) would only be noted (geddit?) by a “highly educated musical ear.” In addition, the label also says the real copyright holders are the Girl Guides Association of Victoria state, not Larrikin who initially brought the case. This is because they sponsored the “Girl Guides song competition for which the song was written.”
Of course this merely confirms what most TMT readers have known all along: major labels have been screwing us since time immemorial. They’d even go so low as to steal from innocent girl guides!
