Satriani v. Coldplay. What do you think?

[acosmichippo]

http://distributedrepublic.net/archives/2008/12/05/satriani-coldplay

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 on 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."

 

[psylichon]

LOL. I was big Satriani fan growing up. I gotta check this out when I get home.

 

[Alexander]

They are pretty similar...

 

[psylichon]

Wow... yeah. I was going to make a smartass comment about how dissimilar Satriani's music is to Coldplay's, but.... wow...

 

[Lincoln]

Very similar indeed. But still, the reason that I like Viva so much is the lyrics, not the chords, which are most certainly not taken from Satriani.

 

[acosmichippo]

it's one thing to come up with a similar chord progression and melody... happens all the time. But the fact that it's in the same key, and has the EXACT same tempo is as close to statistically impossible as it gets.

 

[coachE]

Wow, it sounds like they wrote lyrics to go with the Satriani song.

 

[Lincoln]

Speaking of Coldplay, check out their EP.. very nice, and I don't notice any similarities.

 

[Alexander]

Pretty good article on Coldplay
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/05/arts/music/05pare.html