FWIW, I'm on Colin Hay's side in this

A judge has decided that the flute riff in Men At Work's "Down Under" was plagiarised from the old song "Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree."

Men at Work's Colin Hay has issued an angry statement calling the Down Under plagiarism case "opportunistic greed".

To my mind (and ear), he's right. Musical riffs "quote" others all the time, and usually it's just a way, some wittier than others, to give an attentive listener a little treat. This is not the same thing as plagiarism.

"When I co-wrote Down Under back in 1978, I appropriated nothing from anyone else's song.

"There was no Men At Work, there was no flute, yet the song existed. That's the truth of it, because I was there, Norm Lurie was not, and neither was Justice Jacobson," wrote an emotional Hay.