Men at Work

Is this just "Overkill" or perhaps "It's a Mistake."  As reported by Adam Gabbatt and the Associated Press in Sydney, The Guardian, Friday 5 February 2010: "A federal court in Sydney ruled today that the group's best-known track Down Under plagiarised a campfire song about the penchant of a native bird, the kookaburra, for eating gum drops and counting monkeys, written more than 70 years ago by the late Marion Sinclair, a teacher and girl guide leader.  "I have come to the view that the flute riff in Down Under … replicates in material form a substantial part of Ms Sinclair's work," the federal court justice Peter Jacobson said.  The parties will reconvene in court on 25 February to work out an agreement.  Larrikin Music's lawyer, Adam Simpson, said outside court the company may seek up to 60% of the royalties earned by Down Under, an amount that could total millions.  Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree was penned by Sinclair in 1932.  She reportedly introduced it at a world scouting jamboree in Victoria in 1934, and it quickly spread among guiding associations.  Men at Work lead singer Colin Hay told ABC News that the flautist Greg Ham used two bars from Kookaburra, but said the flute bits were added to Down Under after it was composed.  "When it was written, there was no Men At Work," he said. "There was no flute in the band at all and so when you talk about Down Under, that's what Down Under is to me. I'll go to my grave knowing Down Under is an original piece of work.  "When I wrote that with Ron, we took nothing from anybody and it was a musical accident that happened."