Joe Satriani Sues Coldplay for Plagiarism

[Braincase]

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.


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.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

"Coldplay is the absolutely shittiest ****ing band I've heard in my entire ****ing life. They are a mediocre imitation of Travis, who themselves were a mediocre imitation of Radiohead."

Chuck Klosterman.

[munkey]

I HATE COLEPAY

[DJ's left nut]

A settlement was always by far and away the most likely result.

You still didn't analyze the law worth shit.

Satriani carried the burden of proof and has far fewer resources at his disposal than Coldplay. Had your analysis of the law been correct (i.e. only direct proof can support a verdict), this would've never settled. A motion for judgment on the pleadings would've disposed of it immediately after the discovery period passed and Coldplay would have walked.

A settlement by Coldplay lends even more creedence to Satriani's position. Coldplay knew there was enough evidence to take it to a jury (i.e. indirect evidence and inference), so they settled.

You're doing a very good job of assigning inaccurate conclusions to relatively benign facts throughout this thread.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

A settlement was always by far and away the most likely result.

You still didn't analyze the law worth shit.

Satriani carried the burden of proof and has far fewer resources at his disposal than Coldplay. Had your analysis of the law been correct (i.e. only direct proof can support a verdict), this would've never settled. A motion for judgment on the pleadings would've disposed of it immediately after the discovery period passed and Coldplay would have walked.

A settlement by Coldplay lends even more creedence to Satriani's position. Coldplay knew there was enough evidence to take it to a jury (i.e. indirect evidence and inference), so they settled.

You're doing a very good job of assigning inaccurate conclusions to relatively benign facts throughout this thread.

Wait a second. You just contradicted yourself.

Why would it be in Coldplay's favor to settle, even though Joe Satriani (according to you) doesn't have a enough money to fight in court?

Huh?

And furthermore, if there was enough evidence, as you state, to prove Satriani's claim, why would Joe even bother settling?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Wait a second. You just contradicted yourself.

Why would it be in Coldplay's favor to settle, even though Joe Satriani (according to you) doesn't have a enough money to fight in court?

Huh?

And furthermore, if there was enough evidence, as you state, to prove Satriani's claim, why would Joe even bother settling?

You really did just answer your own question.

A) I never said he didn't have enough money for a fight of any sort. I said only that Coldplay has far more resources. That means more experts, more eyes, more times to simply write motions requiring responses and delays. Satriani wouldn't be able to be nearly as aggressive nor would he likely be able to produce the # of paid experts. That doesn't mean he can't fight it, it simply means he couldn't do it as well.

B) Joe settled because he recognizes A. I never said he had enough evidence to win, I simply said he had enough to submit it to a jury, otherwise Coldplay wouldn't have offered to settle post-discovery. At that point, he doesn't know if the jury will accept his argument or not, but he knows that Coldplay has a hell of a lot more money to make their case with than he does. If he didn't have a strong enough evidentiary foundation to put a spook into Coldplay, they'd lean heavily on the realities of A and tell him to piss up a rope. He has that foundation, so Coldplay offered to settle. He recognizes A and the uncertainty of any jury verdict, so he accepted.

A settlement whereby money is given to a Plaintiff with far fewer resources than the defendant is virtually always a concession by the defendant that there's a damn good chance that they lose this one. This is simply a reality of civil jurisprudence.

[htismaqe]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

"Coldplay is the absolutely shittiest ****ing band I've heard in my entire ****ing life. They are a mediocre imitation of Travis, who themselves were a mediocre imitation of Radiohead."

Chuck Klosterman.

That's rep.

[Time's Yours]

Funny, we just studied this in my Entertainment Law course at my law school. The general consensus was that ColdPlay likely would have lost. The standard for the jury is whether the songs sound substantially similar to an ordinary listener.

If George Harrison lost in court b/c "My Sweet Lord" was too close to "He's so Fine" by the Chiffons, I think you've gotta say Satriani had a good case here.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by phillip

Funny, we just studied this in my Entertainment Law course at my law school. The general consensus was that ColdPlay likely would have lost. The standard for the jury is whether the songs sound substantially similar to an ordinary listener.

If George Harrison lost in court b/c "My Sweet Lord" was too close to "He's so Fine" by the Chiffons, I think you've gotta say Satriani had a good case here.

Read this thread alone and you'll get a hell of a lot better breakdown of it than that. It's significantly more complicated than the songs sounding substantially similar. Further, I can't for the life of me figure out how an "ordinary listener" standard would be applicable here. "Ordinary person" standards generally only apply in cases of alleged unintentional malfeasance.

It's a matter of the jury believing that the songs are so similar sounding that Coldplay must have lifted it from Satriani. It's not an 'ordinary person' standard - each juror substitutes their own respective judgment. This case requires a finding of intentional wrongdoing, so the judgments/actions of an ordinary person here are immaterial.

I'm...uh...unimpressed by your entertainment law class.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by phillip

Funny, we just studied this in my Entertainment Law course at my law school. The general consensus was that ColdPlay likely would have lost. The standard for the jury is whether the songs sound substantially similar to an ordinary listener.

If George Harrison lost in court b/c "My Sweet Lord" was too close to "He's so Fine" by the Chiffons, I think you've gotta say Satriani had a good case here.

Case Law in regards to copyright infringement has come a long, long way since the late 60's and early 70's. With all of the music that's been recorded over the past 40 years worldwide, it's extremely difficult to prove infringement.

There's only 12 notes and millions of songs since then.

[Time's Yours]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Read this thread alone and you'll get a hell of a lot better breakdown of it than that. It's significantly more complicated than the songs sounding substantially similar. Further, I can't for the life of me figure out how an "ordinary listener" standard would be applicable here. "Ordinary person" standards generally only apply in cases of alleged unintentional malfeasance.

It's a matter of the jury believing that the songs are so similar sounding that Coldplay must have lifted it from Satriani. It's not an 'ordinary person' standard - each juror substitutes their own respective judgment. This case requires a finding of intentional wrongdoing, so the judgments/actions of an ordinary person here are immaterial.

I'm...uh...unimpressed by your entertainment law class.

Copyright violation doesn't have to be intentional wrongdoing. It can be subconscious. Look up Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs.

I wasn't trying to be comprehensive, just trying to make a quick point.

I don't think my class is a problem. I have a very experienced professor at a top 25 law school.

Edit - From that case:
"What happened? I conclude that the composer,12 in
seeking musical materials to clothe his thoughts, was
working with various possibilities. As he tried this
possibility and that, there came to the surface of his
mind a particular combination that pleased him as
being one he felt would be appealing to a prospective
listener; in other words, that this combination of
sounds would work. Why? Because his subconscious
knew it already had worked in a song his conscious
mind did not remember. Having arrived at this
pleasing combination of sounds, the recording was
made, the lead sheet prepared for copyright and the
song became an enormous success. Did Harrison
deliberately use the music of He’s So Fine? I do not
believe he did so deliberately. Nevertheless, it is clear
that My Sweet Lord is the very same song as He’s So
Fine with different words,13 and Harrison had access
to He’s So Fine. This is, under the law, infringement
of copyright, and is no less so even though
subconsciously accomplished."

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

A settlement whereby money is given to a Plaintiff with far fewer resources than the defendant is virtually always a concession by the defendant that there's a damn good chance that they lose this one. This is simply a reality of civil jurisprudence.

In this case, I think there's far more involved, especially given Coldplay's stature as a "Megaband". If they had lost in court (which I still say was less than a 10% chance), they go down in the court of public opinion as copycats. It definitely would hurt their standing.

By settling, they avoid any embarrassing blurbs or an extremely embarrassing outcome. With a settlement, it just goes away...

Seriously, have you seen anything on 'net or the news other than the link I provided?

[Time's Yours]

"Substantial similarity exists when the relevant aspects of the accused work are so similar to the relevant aspects of the copyrighted work that an ordinary, reasonable person would conclude that the defendant took material of substance and value from the copyrighted work and unlawfully appropriated it."

http://www.scottandscottllp.com/main...y.aspx?id=1632

Like I said, ordinary person...

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by phillip

Copyright violation doesn't have to be intentional wrongdoing. It can be subconscious. Look up Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs.

I wasn't trying to be comprehensive, just trying to make a quick point.

I don't think my class is a problem. I have a very experienced professor at a top 25 law school.

The burden of proof is so high now that you virtually have to prove that the infringer actually heard the song that they infringed upon.

As I said earlier, this isn't 1970.

[Time's Yours]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

The burden of proof is so high now that you virtually have to prove that the infringer actually heard the song that they infringed upon.

As I said earlier, this isn't 1970.

I know you have to prove they heard it. Access has always been an element AFAIK. I read somewhere that Satriani could prove access. Maybe I misremembered?

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by phillip

"Substantial similarity exists when the relevant aspects of the accused work are so similar to the relevant aspects of the copyrighted work that an ordinary, reasonable person would conclude that the defendant took material of substance and value from the copyrighted work and unlawfully appropriated it."

http://www.scottandscottllp.com/main...y.aspx?id=1632

Like I said, ordinary person...

You missed the most important part:

The plaintiffs alleged they submitted their song for recording by Vassar and that Vassar rejected the song. Plaintiffs later recorded, copyrighted, and released the song on their own. Vassar also later recorded a song that plaintiffs alleged infringed on their copyright in the song they recorded.

So in this case, there is definite proof that Vassar heard the song, firsthand.

In the Satriani case, that would have to be established otherwise, Satriani would lose.

Proving that would have been extremely difficult.