LOS ANGELES - Rock guitarist Joe Satriani has sued British band Coldplay, accusing the Grammy-nominated stars of plagiarizing one of his songs.
Satriani’s copyright infringement suit, filed Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Coldplay song “Viva La Vida” incorporates “substantial original portions” of his 2004 instrumental “If I Could Fly.”
The 52-year-old guitar virtuoso is seeking a jury trial, damages and “any and all profits” attributable to the alleged copyright infringement.
IANAMusician, but what I hear are identical tempos (which are the same in approx. 1 kajillion songs) 4 identical sounding chords in the same order and the first 3 notes of the same melody, after which they diverge quite a bit for a few measures.
Yes, they sound fantastic played together. But I’m not sure 3 notes and 4 chords is “substantial original portions”. Of course, since both songs seem to made up almost entirely of those three notes and four chords, it’s hard to really judge.
Seems like coincidental lazy writing struck twice to me, but I don’t feel particularly strongly about that position.
Whew! I’m sure it was unintentional but it sounds pretty darn close to me. I’d recommend settling out of court & giving him credit in future album printings, along with some % of royalties.
Finally! I avoid listening to Coldplay as much as humanly possible, but I’ve had this one come crawling along a couple of times. It always drove me nuts, as I knew it was ripped off from something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Man, I hope this was unintentional. Having these choads think they’re anywhere in the same league as Satch would be much more insulting…
I think it’s total coincidance. Do you really think that those Coldplay wankers are secretly heshing out to some Satriani when nobody’s looking? I’d be surprised if any of them had ever even heard that song before. That being said, I do think that Coldplay needs to add that guitar line into their performances of that song from now on so that there’s a snowballs chance in hell that I’d listen to any more of their stuff.
The melody that ol’ Satch is concerned with is three notes. Is is possible that Coldplay ripped off that melody? Yeah, but it is simple enough and the note count is low enough that anyone might use it without knowing that Satch used it previously. (On a side note, I’d be willing to bet that if you looked you could find someone who used the same melody before Satch, it is just too simple).
IANALawyer, and I do believe it is total coincidence, but I believe that Coldplay would lose in court - but that it won’t get to court and they will pay a settlement.
I have a friend who wrote a commercial jingle - and got millions for it when it was used by a major store chain as their main theme for a few years - who was sued by a woman claiming infringement of some sort. The melody and chord progression were far simpler and elemental vs. the Coldplay/Satriani links - we found a bunch of well-known songs that follow the same structure without half trying - but the case was still going to be hard fought and the lawyers recommended that my friend settle.
Basically in that case, it was a nuisance case - the plaintiff was a troll, looking for the slimmest of connections as a way to make money litigiously. But if the legal experts thought that case was not worth fighting, this new one is far, far closer.
I would equate this to who the Rolling Stones realized that “Anybody Seen My Baby” had the exact same chord sequence, tempo and melody as kd lang’s “Constant Craving”…they settled out of court and gave her a song-writing co-credit for future earnings.
I’d say coincidence or subconscious appropriation. This has happened to me several times before. I’d come up with a riff or melody line or something, and then hear it on the radio later. Usually, it was an older song that I can’t remember ever hearing before, but may have lodged itself into my subconscious. Like the Coldplay song, there were significant divergences after about four bars, but to a lay listener, it may sound close to plagiarism.
Other times, the new song I’d hear on the radio post-dates my little composition so, unless I’m paranoid and think some record company is spying on me, it’s just coincidence. My old jazz piano teacher told me a similar story that back in the 30s or 40s, he wrote a piece and a year or two later a full eight bars of it were quoted almost verbatim in some jazz composition. Now, he said he has no reason to believe anyone got a hold of his piece, and he didn’t really play it publicly, so he just chalks it up to coincidence.
It happens. With catalogues of hundreds of thousands or millions of songs out there, there are bound to be many within that set that share significant similarities either purely by coincidence, or by subconscious “borrowing.” It would take a rather extreme case for me to side on the side claiming plagiarism, as that would really require a look inside the brain of the composer.
Coincidence. I bet we here at the dope can think of a dozen songs that use the same chord progression (Em, C, G, D), and at little four note ditty ain’t anything special. I don’t buy it.
Like the first verse Sublime’s “What I Got” and The Beatle’s “Lady Madonna.” That sounds borderline to me, and even the first couplet has similar rhymes (“feet/meet” in “Lady Madonna”, “street/feet” in “What I Got.”) Now, that one I don’t think is so much coincidence as either an homage/wink-wink allusion to the Beatles, or perhaps just a subconscious borrowing, but it only lasts in that intro verse.
I’ve often wondered how one can possibly prevent this, aside from asking a bunch of people if they have ever heard the tune before. But it seems like with technological advances we ought to be able to run things against a database as a check before songs even get pressed.
I’m thinking of that iPhone app that you hold up to the radio and it IDs the song you’re hearing.
WRT the case at hand, yes it is a very similar riff, but it’s not really the same song, to me. I bet Satriani has previsaged (and also “copied”) thousands of riffs due to his style of play. But it’s similar enough that a cowrite credit is probably appropriate.
This kind of thing can get awfully sticky, but I think that coldplay would do well to settle. The courts seem to love this sort of thing. I play a lot of death/doom metal and there are a finite number of arrangements that keep the sound rolling. Innovation comes from melody, timing etc. For example, Nile uses a well recognized “egyptian melody” as a repetitive theme throughout Unas slayer of the gods It’s really nothing more than a minor scale. Do they now own an entire scale? Nah, but if I use it, I bet I’d have to settle.
It’s just too obvious for a mash-up. As much as I can’t stand mash-ups in general, their charm comes in taking two disparate songs and throwing them together.
I’ll throw in a minor dissent here. Not that I think it was intentional plagiarism - I think coincidence is much more likely. However, there are more than 3 notes that are the same/similar - I’d say it’s more like 9-10. I agree they’d do well to settle.
IANAL, but my understanding has always been that you can’t copywrite a chord progression only a melody. So the chord progression bit is probably right out the window.
As to the question of the melody…it’s hard to say. I think Coldplay will probably settle, but I don’t know if that’s really fair.