Joe Satriani Sues Coldplay for Plagiarism
 

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/160...coldplay.jhtml

Dec 5 2008 9:27 AM EST
Coldplay Sued By Joe Satriani For Allegedly Plagiarizing 'Viva La Vida' Melody

Guitarist claims the Grammy-nominated song is a rip-off of his track 'If I Could Fly.'

By Gil Kaufman




Not long after Coldplay's Viva la Vida album hit shelves this summer, the blogosphere exploded with suggestions that the title track bore a striking resemblance to a 2004 instrumental track by rock guitarist Joe Satriani titled "If I Could Fly."
Now, Satriani has accused the band of copyright infringement in a lawsuit filed on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, according to a Reuters report.
A day after the Coldplay album was nominated for seven Grammys, including Record and Song of the Year for "Viva la Vida," Satriani's suit claims that "Viva" incorporates "substantial original portions" of his track "If I Could Fly," from the Is There Love in Space? album.
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Satriani, 52, is seeking a jury trial in the dispute, as well as damages and "any and all profits" attributable to the alleged copyright infringement. The songwriting credit on the Coldplay song is attributed to the band's four members: singer Chris Martin, bass player Guy Berryman, guitarist Jonny Buckland and drummer Will Champion. A spokesperson for Coldplay could not be reached for comment at press time.
Satriani isn't the only artist who has claimed the Coldplay song was eerily familiar. Around the time of the album's release, a lesser-known New York band named Creaky Boards claimed that Martin had attended one of their gigs and would have heard the tune "The Songs I Didn't Write," which also bears a similar melody. At the time, Coldplay's spokespeople denied that Martin was at the gig and said the band had written "Viva" several months before that show.


Here's a nice link to a youtube comparison of the two songs.


Based on my observation, Coldplay better get their checkbook out.

That's very difficult to prove in a court of law but I wish Joe all the best.

I HATE Can't Play.

Jesus.

That's about as blatant as it gets.

Apparently Gwyneth isn't that hip to them these days either.

I knew I had heard that song somewhere before -- so once I saw this earlier today, it was nice to learn I wasn't nuts.

Well, at least not when it comes to this issue.

MM
~~:)

:clap: No shit. Chicks love that band for some reason. Why do so many chicks have such aweful taste in music?

I saw coldplay live at the sprint center, they were amazing, but i like the previous albums

I've never heard of the first guy, but coldplay is pretty sweet. they rocked sprint center

What kind of guitarist doesn't know who Satch is?

song sounds great on the youtube link where they actually play the 2 songs at the same time.

the guitar fills out the song nicely

gah my avy spoiled my fishing attempt

I can totally believe that this wasn't intentional. I don't think for a second that anyone in Coldplay has listened to a Satriani record before.

So it probably isn't plagarism without any intent behind it. Who knows.

Satch > Coldplay, btw.

Yeah, it really did. There needs to me a full-on remix; I'd listen to it a lot.

This is totally accidental and there are probably at least 100 songs out there that are exactly the same as these two.

Here are the chords.
C - D - G - emin


The melody is only the same for three notes over the first two chords. After that, they are actually pretty different melodies, but of course the two harmonize together since they're played out of the same scale and over the same chords. Satch knows this wasn't done on purpose. He's well aware of how generic the two songs are and how common that melody is over these chords.

Name four other songs with that riff and that tempo and I'll side with your argument. If you check out the youtube link in the original post, you'll understand why Joe has a good case. You could have them both perform at the same time on the same stage... and you'd go away believing that at least one person on the stage knew what he was doing.