Australian 80's band Men At Work have been ordered by a court to pay royalties for ripping off a flute riff from a children's campfire song for their hit song "Down Under." The band said it was an "unconscious" lifting.

A judge in Sydney ruled that the band must pay royalties to Larrikin Music, a group that has owned the rights to the 70-plus years old song "Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gumtree" since 1990. But Men At Work only have to pay royalties on money received from the song since 2002, which should amount to pocket change, really. The original song was written by an Australian school teacher, Marion Sinclair, for a competition. Men At Work won a Grammy in 1983 for "Best New Artist," and have sold over 30 million records since their debut.

[Telegraph]