Joe Satriani sues Cold Play

Definate rip off! It's too close to be a coincidence.

I agree this is a major rip-off. I hope Satch gets this all situated.

MetalRob331 wrote:

I hope Satch gets this all situated.

Satch-uated!

detuned wrote:

MetalRob331 wrote:

I hope Satch gets this all situated.

Satch-uated!

haha yea that one

Well it's a popular chord pattern used by everyone who plays pop music today. it's the new 1 4 5.

From Blabbermouth:

Legendary rock guitarist Joe Satriani has spoken to MusicRadar.com about his decision to sue COLDPLAY, accusing the Grammy-nominated stars of plagiarizing one of his songs.

According to Reuters, Satriani's copyright infringement suit, filed on Thursday (December 4) 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.

Speaking to MusicRadar.com on December 6, Joe Satriani recalled the exact emotion he felt when he first heard COLDPLAY's "Viva La Vida".

"The second I heard, I knew... I felt like a dagger went right through my heart. It hurt so much," Satriani said. "The second I heard it, I knew it was [my own] 'If I Could Fly'."

As it turned out, Satriani wasn't the only one who noticed the similarity between "If I Could Fly" and "Viva La Vida".

"Almost immediately, from the minute their song came out, my e-mail box flooded with people going, 'Have you heard this song by COLDPLAY? They ripped you off man,'" he said. "I mean, I couldn't tell you how many e-mails I received.

"Everybody noticed the similarities between the songs. It's pretty obvious. It's as simple as that — when you listen to a song and you say, 'Wow, that's a real rip-off.'"

Read more from MusicRadar.com.

Coldplay - let's rip of this guy Satriani, most of our fans don't know what good music is anyway. Have you heard of this guy? Yeah neither have I.

Satriani - I like playing guitar.

Coldplay's response:



NEW YORK (AP) - Coldplay has fired back against accusations they copied another artist's work for their hit "Viva La Vida."

In a statement released on Tuesday, the band responded to a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by guitarist Joe Satriani last week in federal court in Los Angeles. That lawsuit says the Grammy-nominated song contains "substantial, original portions" of his 2004 song, "If I Could Fly."

"With the greatest possible respect to Joe Satriani, we have now unfortunately found it necessary to respond publicly to his allegations," read the statement. "If there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental, and just as surprising to us as to him. Joe Satriani is a great musician, but he did not write the song 'Viva La Vida.' We respectfully ask him to accept our assurances of this and wish him well with all future endeavours."



They are going to totally lose in court!!!!

Coldplay deserve it one way or another. According to the hype they rip off other artists as well like Radiohead so it will teach them a lesson for good which I find very plausable. Don't mind a few songs of Coldplay's but they generally have very bland songs and attract an audience of Bank Managers, Tax Accountants and generally average joes

Joe should sue them for sucking!

Ben Grimm wrote:

Joe should sue them for sucking!

I actually don't mind Cold Play but that was funny as hell.

Has there been any update on this case? Are they going to court or was this settled?

Here's the only thing I have seen about lawsuit recently, from Classic Rock Magazine's website:


Joe Satriani had threatened to serve Coldplay with a writ at the Grammys in his ongoing feud with the indie chancers over his track If I Could Fly. As you can see by the headline, he didn’t.
Satriani is still expected to proceed with court proceedings for Coldaplay’s Viva La Vida stealing ’sunbstantial original portions’ of his 2004 track.
Just to add insult to injury, Coldplay won Best Song Of The Year for (you guessed it) Viva La Vida. Ouch.

I was debating starting a new thread about this one, but it's in the same theme. Apparently a track off of the new Springsteen album is eerily close to a classic KISS tune. You be the judge...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uANKzbaucU

I don't think any legal action has been taken (yet), but it's interesting.

That has some similarity but not as much as Coldplay/Satch. I think there's not much original anymore in popular music and this is bound to happen more and more. Guys have heard a song but probably don't remember when or where and then put the line in their own song. I don't see Bruce as being much of a Kiss fan.

A co-worker and I were joking at work a bit about this, saying something to the effect Joe was in the crowd at the Grammys telling everyone around him "Hey, did you know I wrote this song?". We had images of various musical stars smiling and nodding in that 'that's nice' sort of way.

Maybe he even got a pat on the back or two.

Quote :

Guys have heard a song but probably don't remember when or where and then put the line in their own song

I've heard a story that when Paul McCartney originally came up with the music to "Yesterday", he shellved it, thinking that he must have heard the melody somewhere else because it came to him so easily. He couldn't believe he came up with it completely on his own. It was George Martin that convinced him to record it.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

Quote :

Guys have heard a song but probably don't remember when or where and then put the line in their own song

I've heard a story that when Paul McCartney originally came up with the music to "Yesterday", he shellved it, thinking that he must have heard the melody somewhere else because it came to him so easily. He couldn't believe he came up with it completely on his own. It was George Martin that convinced him to record it.

True story, he even recounts the story in the hours long Beatles Anthology DVD documentary.

I've heard that too. Back then, it was probably easier to come up with original stuff. If Judas Priest sued everyone that had a riff of theirs in a song they'd be in court for life.

NumbskullakaNazgul wrote:

I've heard that too. Back then, it was probably easier to come up with original stuff. If Judas Priest sued everyone that had a riff of theirs in a song they'd be in court for life.

yep, also almost every one of the eighties glam bands could have sued each other at one point or another.

sam wrote:

NumbskullakaNazgul wrote:

I've heard that too. Back then, it was probably easier to come up with original stuff. If Judas Priest sued everyone that had a riff of theirs in a song they'd be in court for life.

yep, also almost every one of the eighties glam bands could have sued each other at one point or another.

This is what I was thinking. People take melodies, riffs and copy some styles of other bands to make their own music. But the song can't be that similar. At least change the chorus or add something, so that they couldn't sound so similar

I think sometimes it's an homage if the bands are in the same genre, or one band was influenced by another. Take Priest and Primal fear for example, lots of similarities there. Also, I was listening to Firewind the other night and was struck by how much "Ready To Strike" sounds like Whitesnake's "Children Of The Night" At least to my ears. Do I think Gus G. intentionally ripped off David Coverdale? No, not at all. He might be just like hundreds of people who have heard that song hundreds of times since 1987.

I think they'll end up settling for Joe having a co-write credit w/ the appropriate publishing roaylty (and back royalties) applied to it....like The Rolling Stones had to do w/ KD Lang when one of thier songs sounded like one of hers...

There are only so many riff combinations out there (especially in a genre like metal which has a very small chordal vocabulary to begin with). The progression to Black Sabbath's N.I.B & War Pigs is almost identical...and that same progression shows up in countless Judas Priest songs...which in turn shows up in a million songs by a million other bands.

There's only so many tracks you can write in the key of "E", it's inevitable that somebody, somewhere has come up with the same riff either by accident or subconsciously remembering it from something else.

The first original I ever wrote I thought sounded pretty damn cool, recorded it and played it for a few friends. One of them then pointed out that it was almost identical to the riff in "Wickedness Of Man" by Trouble...as soon as he said it I realized it, but I never intentionally "ripped if off".

I just noticed for the first time recently that the Savatage song "Streets" is almost identical to the title track from Eternal Idol.