Larrikin Records is a record company founded in 1974 by

Warren Fahey Warren John Fahey AM (born 3 January 1946) is an Australian folklore collector, cultural historian, author, actor, broadcaster, record and concert producer, visual artist, songwriter, and performer of Australian traditional and related historic ...

. Larrikin started as an independent label and was sold in 1995 to

Festival Records Festival Records (later known as Festival Mushroom Records) was an Australian recording and publishing company founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1952 and operated until 2005. Festival was a wholly owned subsidiary of News Limited from 1961 to ...

. Artists who have released albums on Larrikin include

Eric Bogle Eric Bogle (born 23 September 1944) is a Scottish-born Australian folk singer-songwriter. Born and raised in Scotland, he emigrated to Australia at the age of 25, to settle near Adelaide, South Australia. Bogle's songs have covered a variety of ...

Sirocco Sirocco ( ), scirocco, or, rarely, siroc (see below) is a Mediterranean wind that comes from the Sahara and can reach hurricane speeds in North Africa and Southern Europe, especially during the summer season. Names ''Sirocco'' derives from ...

Mike and Michelle Jackson Mike and Michelle Jackson were an Australian multi-instrumental duo principally known as children's entertainers. Between 1979 and 1986, the pair featured in a national TV Show (''Playmates'' on ABC Television), created ten albums (three Gold a ...

Bobby McLeod Bobby McLeod (1947 – 30 May 2009) was an Aboriginal activist, poet, healer, musician and Yuin elder. He was from Wreck Bay Village, Jervis Bay Territory. He was involved in the fight for Aboriginal rights in Australia and travelled the world s ...

, Kev Carmody,

Flying Emus Flying Emus are an Australian country/ bluegrass band that formed in 1984 and released four studio albums, including, '' This Town'', which won an ARIA Award for Best Country Album in 1988. They disbanded in 1990. At the Country Music Awards ...

Robyn Archer Robyn Archer, AO, CdOAL (born 1948) is an Australian singer, writer, stage director, artistic director, and public advocate of the arts, in Australia and internationally. Life Archer was born Robyn Smith in Prospect, South Australia. She beg ...

Redgum Redgum were an Australian folk and political music group formed in Adelaide in 1975 by singer-songwriter John Schumann, Michael Atkinson on guitars/vocals, Verity Truman on flute/vocals; they were later joined by Hugh McDonald on fiddle and Ch ...

, Margret RoadKnight,

Jeannie Lewis Jean Ethel "Jeannie" Lewis (born 8 January 1945) is an Australian musician and stage performer whose work covers many different styles such as folk, jazz, Latin, blues, opera, rock and fusion.McFarlane'Jeannie Lewis'entry. Archived frothe origin ...

, Mark Atkins,

Renée Geyer Renée Rebecca Geyer (born 11 September 1953) is an Australian singer who has long been regarded as one of the finest exponents of jazz, soul and R&B idioms. She had commercial success as a solo artist in Australia, with " It's a Man's Man's ...

, Rank Strangers, The Sweets of Sin,

Richard Frankland Richard Joseph Frankland is an Australian playwright, scriptwriter and musician. He is an Aboriginal Australian of Gunditjmara origin from Victoria (Australia), Victoria. He has worked significantly for the Aboriginal Australian cause. Biog ...

and Currency from Canberra. In recent years, Larrikin has been infamous for copyright lawsuits against the performers of the song

Down Under The term ''Down Under'' is a colloquialism which is differently construed to refer to Australia and New Zealand, or Pacific Island countries collectively.Oxford English Dictionary (Electronic), Version 4.0, entry fordown under. The dictionary r ...

. The suit was successful and profitable for Larrikin, though it was perceived by many as unfair profiteering.

"Down Under" lawsuits

The Larrikin Records label became widely known in 2009 after Larrikin Music sued the band

Men At Work Men at Work are an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1978 and best known for breakthrough hits such as " Down Under", "Who Can It Be Now?", " Be Good Johnny", " Overkill", and " It's a Mistake". Its founding member and frontman is C ...

for allegedly stealing part of the melody of the song " Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree," whose

publishing rights A publishing contract is a legal contract between a publisher and a writer or author (or more than one), to publish original content by the writer(s) or author(s). This may involve a single written work, or a series of works. In the case of music p ...

are held by Larrikin Music, in the music of their

hit Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...

"Down Under".

, the former owner of both Larrikin Music and Larrikin Records, has always refuted claims that he was personally responsible for the action (see, e.g. ABC/Rebel Studio DVD 3747195 "Larrikin Lad—Warren Fahey" and "Larrikin Records and Larrikin Music Founder Speaks Out", Australian Folk Lore Unit website, 9 February 2010). Fahey had sold his music publishing company, Larrikin Music, to Music Sales Corporation in 1988 and Larrikin Records to Festival Music in 1995 (see

). In February 2010, the Federal Court ruled in Larrikin's favour and on 10 July 2010, Justice Jacobsen ordered

frontman

Colin Hay Colin James Hay (born 29 June 1953) is a Scottish-Australian musician, singer, songwriter, and actor. He came to prominence as the lead vocalist and the sole continuous member of the band Men at Work, and later as a solo artist. Hay's music ha ...

, fellow songwriter

Ron Strykert Ronald Graham Strykert (born 18 August 1957) is an Australian musician. He is best known for playing lead guitar, co-founding and composing songs with the 1980s band Men at Work. Career Strykert co-founded Men at Work with Colin Hay as an aco ...

and

EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British Transnational corporation, transnational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate founded in March 1 ...

to pay Larrikin 5 per cent of future profits, as well as

royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...

dating back to 2002. EMI appealed the ruling, while Colin Hay "slammed" the court's decision, claiming it "will hamper musical creativity across the industry.". Larrikin's former owner

responded to the wide criticism against the court's decision"Larrikin Records and Larrikin Music Founder Speaks Out"
Australian Folk Lore Unit website, 9 February 2010 and to Colin Hay's verbal attacks, by suggesting that Larrikin "gift this song to the ustraliannation." Fahey said that Larrikin "should be entitled to collect an appropriate settlement" but then "should allow the song its own life so as to ensure future young Australians can sing and perform it for generations to come, without limitation. The decision to sue the creators of "Down Under" was made by Norm Lurie, then the managing director of Music Sales, Larrikin’s

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

. When asked how much Larrikin would be seeking in damages, Larrikin's lawyer Adam Simpson replied: "anything from what we've claimed, which is between 40 and 60 per cent, and what they suggest, which is considerably less." In court, Lurie claimed that, had the parties negotiated a licence at the outset as willing parties, the royalties would have been between 25 and 50 per cent. Lurie defended the court action, stating: "Of course it would be disingenuous for me to say that there wasn’t a financial aspect involved, utyou could just as easily say what has won out today is the importance of checking before using other people’s copyrights." He added "I’d hope that Colin ayand the other writers of

don’t have a problem with people using some of their material for financial gain." In the ''Journal of media arts and culture'', Steve Collins analyzed the procedure and concluded that "Pure financial exploitations of copyrights in cases such as this are more likely to have an adverse effect on the incentive to create and chill future creativity." Men at Work frontman Colin Hay believes the well-publicized case led to the untimely deaths of his father Jim in 2010, and the group's flutist Greg Ham in 2012.

References

External links

Warren Fahey's official website

Larrikin Records
in the website of the

National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "maint ...

{{Authority control Australian independent record labels Record labels established in 1974

"Down Under" lawsuits

See also

References

External links