When Australian Federal Court judge Peter Jacobsen ruled that a famous flute riff from the hit Down Under by the pop group Men At Work plagiarized a popular nursery rhyme from the Girl Guides, it once again underscored divisions over the implicit and explicit role that popularity should play in the copyright debate.

In a ruling that marked the end of a three-year legal battle, Judge Jacobsen held that the riff in the song, which topped the charts in the United Kingdom and America in early 1982, infringed on the copyright of Kookaburra “because it replicates a substantial part of the song” written by written by teacher Marion Sinclair.

While the ruling held strong to the unstated position that popularity sometimes can and does actually increase the protection a work is afforded, not everyone is swayed that such views should be hold true in the digital age. (more…)