"On The Inside" is the theme from Prisoner, or Prisoner Cell Block H (as it was called in the US and UK) or Caged Women (in Canada).

The theme song was "On The Inside". It was written by an Australian songwriter called Allan Caswell.

A band from America recorded a song called "Christmas In Dixie" that sounded so much like "On The Inside" that Allan thought that Alabama might have infringed his song. He asked his publisher, ATV Sony if they agreed.

They wanted an expert opinion, so they asked a musicologist to advise whether an infringement had taken place.

The expert's opinion said: “…it is my opinion that a case can be made that the two works bear a level of similarity that goes beyond what I would consider to be a random occurrence or sheer coincidence…. [and] further reinforces my viewpoint that one work is reproducing a substantial part of the other work.”

All pretty straightforward. But ATV Sony failed to do anything.

Then Allan found out why. ATV Sony is also the publisher of the Alabama song!

Talk about a conflict of interest. They owned both songs.

Of course it would be hard for them to sue themselves. But wouldn't you think that as the owner of a hit song which they have made a pile of money from, they might feel some responsibility to the original writer, Allan Caswell, to ensure that he was actually paid for a song that their own experts told them had been infringed by their other writers?

This is the same corporation, that through the RIAA, sues ordinary people that download songs and copy them.

Seems like there must be one law for ordinary people and another for big corporations. Or is it that there is one law for Australian songwriters and another for American songwriters from a band that is reputedly "one of the bestselling American musical acts of all time" (according to Wikipedia)

So what do you think? On the right of this column are videos of both the Lynne Hamilton version of "On The Inside" and the Alabama version of "Christmas In Dixie".

On the left is a widget that enables you to cast a vote. Tell us what you think. And tell anyone who cares about what the difference between right and wrong to visit this site and to vote!