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The associated press is reporting that Australian band Men at Work copied a well-known children’s campfire song for the flute melody in its 1980s hit “Down Under” and owes the owner years of royalties, a court ruled Thursday.

“Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” was written more than 70 years ago by Australian teacher Marion Sinclair for a Girl Guides competition, and the song has been a favorite around campfires from New Zealand to Canada.

The teacher died in 1988, and publishing company Larrikin Music owns the copyright to her song about the native Australian bird. Larrikin filed the copyright lawsuit last year.

“I have come to the view that the flute riff in “Down Under” … infringes on the copyright of Kookaburra because it replicates in material form a substantial part of Ms. Sinclair’s 1935 work,” Federal Court Justice Peter Jacobson said.

He ordered the parties back in court Feb. 25 to discuss the compensation Larrikin should receive from songwriters Colin Hay and Ron Strykert and Men at Work’s record companies Sony BMG Music Entertainment and EMI Songs Australia.

Adam Simpson, Larrikin Music’s lawyer, said outside court the company might seek up to 60 percent of the royalties “Down Under” earned since its release — an amount that could total millions.

The songwriters and their recording companies did not immediately comment.

“Down Under” and the album “Business As Usual” topped the Australian, American and British charts in early 1983. The song remains an unofficial anthem for Australia and was ranked fourth in a 2001 music industry survey of the best Australian songs. Men at Work won the 1983 Grammy Award for Best New Artist.

A British court has blocked an attempt by former Culture Club singer Boy George to appear on a reality television show.

The 48-year-old had hoped to appear on Channel 4’s “Celebrity Big Brother” despite being on probation for assaulting a male escort.

Newspaper reports say George would stand to earn tens of thousands of dollars for appearing on the show, which begins Jan. 3.
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Probation officers argue that allowing George to appear on the show would undermine the reputation of London’s probation service and public confidence in the judicial system.

George appealed the service’s ban, saying probation was not meant to punish him.

High Court judge David Bean dismissed George’s appeal Wednesday.

ABBA is dancing its way into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with Genesis, Jimmy Cliff, The Hollies and The Stooges.

The list of the next class of inductees was released Tuesday by the Cleveland hall. ABBA and The Stooges made it in this time after being nominated previously but not making the cut.

ABBA, a Swedish pop group that became one of the most successful acts in pop history, continues to sell millions of records each year and has been finding new fans through the popularity of “Mamma Mia,” a stage musical and film incorporating its songs, including “Dancing Queen,” “Money, Money, Money” and “The Winner Takes It All.”

ABBA’s name is an acronym formed from the first names of band members Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson, Bjorn Ulvaeus and Annifrid Lyngstad. They broke up in 1982 and have resisted reunion offers.

Genesis began in the late 1960s as an art-rock act fronted by Peter Gabriel and evolved after his 1975 departure into a more mainstream act, with drummer Phil Collins taking over as lead singer. Some of the band’s more familiar songs include “Follow You, Follow Me,” “Tonight Tonight Tonight” and “Invisible Touch.”

Cliff, a Jamaican singer, is credited with introducing reggae music to a broader audience through his album “The Harder They Come” and the movie of the same name, in which he starred in the early 1970s.

Part of the British Invasion, the Hollies had a long string of pop hits in the 1960s characterized by the three-part harmonies of original members Allan Clarke, Graham Nash and Eric Haydock.

Led by the Iggy Pop, The Stooges came sneering out of Ann Arbor, Mich., in the late ’60s with a primal, growling sound that paved the way for punk, new wave, grunge and other, edgier music genres.

The Rock Hall also announced that its Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-performers would go to music industry executive David Geffen, the songwriting teams of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and Ellie Greenwich and Jeff Barry, and individual songwriters Jesse Stone, Mort Shuman and Otis Blackwell.

Ertegun, the founder and chairman of Atlantic Records, died in 2006.

The hall’s 25th annual induction ceremony is scheduled for March 15 in New York City.

MSNBC.com is reporting that Alexa Ray Joel, the daughter of pop star Billy Joel and supermodel Christie Brinkley, was hospitalized after taking eight pills at her Manhattan apartment, a law enforcement official said Saturday.

A friend frantically called 911 shortly after noon Saturday from the singer’s Greenwich Village apartment saying Joel, 23, had taken several pills, the official told The Associated Press. Joel took eight pills, though officials didn’t know what kind she had ingested, an official said; it wasn’t clear whether she had accidentally overdosed or attempted suicide, the official said.

The official wasn’t authorized to publicly disclose the matter and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Joel is hospitalized in stable condition and receiving treatment, Joel publicist Claire Mercuri said Saturday. She wouldn’t elaborate.

“We are currently assessing her needs,” she said.

Fire Department records indicate that paramedics responded to the West Village building where Joel lives at 12:21 p.m. Saturday and transported one woman to St. Vincent’s Hospital. The fire department declined to identify the patient.

Joel, who was raised in Sag Harbor, a village on Long Island, attended New York University for a short time before dropping out to focus on her music career, according to her MySpace page.

The singer, songwriter and pianist self-released a short album in 2006 and debuted a new song, “Invisible,” this year about a failed relationship with the opening lyrics, “They say it doesn’t matter/This love is in my mind/We never got it right, anyway.”

In a MySpace blog post this summer, Joel described herself as “forgotten” and said she was finding it hard to meet a nice guy.

“Just Men. UGH!!! MEN!!!!” she wrote in August. “I’m so terrible at dating — I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it! And I HATE the game-playing! Can’t stand it.”

Joel had performances scheduled in the city next week, including at the New York Stock Exchange tree lighting ceremony.