Some of you out there seem to have spent the weekend battling in the comments trenches about whether guitarist Joe Satriani (pictured) was right to sue Coldplay. For everyone else, a quick recap: Satriani thinks that Coldplay stole a riff for their hit "Viva La Vida" from an instrumental track he released in 2004, so he’s seeking a big payday in court. (Click over to last week’s post to hear the two songs side by side.) Either way, you might be interested in the response that the band just posted on their website:
"With the greatest possible respect to Joe Satriani, we have now unfortunately found it necessary to respond publicly to his allegations. 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. Coldplay."
The lads’ wording is very polite as always, but it doesn’t sound like they’re yielding much ground here. This statement feels like the equivalent of saying, "Look, Joe, you’re cool and all, but could you please f— off now?"
And the more I think about this suit, the more I’m inclined to agree with them. There’s no denying the similarities between the two compositions. But so what? There are a finite number of pleasing riffs in the musical universe. And even though that signature riff overlaps, you don’t have to love Coldplay (or disrespect Joe Satriani, who is a very talented guy) to tell the difference between the final "Viva La Vida" and Satriani’s "If I Could Fly." Similar is not the same. So unless we’re talking about Coldplay wholesale jacking an entire song, music and lyrics, and republishing it under their own name without any credit — something which they obviously did not do here — I personally don’t see why they owe Satriani anything more than a friendly acknowledgment that he got to that riff first. (And yes, this is the same problem I have with current sampling law, the "My Sweet Lord" verdict, etc.) Of course, it’s far from certain that a judge would see things the same way. What do you think?
More on Coldplay and suspiciously similar music:
Coldplay is one of EW’s 2008 Entertainers of the Year
They gave EW a sneak preview of Viva La Vida back in May
EW.com got an exclusive glimpse of one of bassist Guy Berryman’s sketches
2002’s A Rush of Blood to the Head is one of EW’s New Music Classics
EW took a look at a few other soundalike songs in 2006
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Here Here! Well said
I’m a songwriter. I’ve had to toss out DOZENS of songs I wrote years ago because they are too similar to new hits. No one stole them, no one could even have ever heard them. If you give 10 songwriters the same chord progression, the end result will be amazingly similar melodies.
It’s amazing that your article is so ignorant. What about Copyright law?
The thing is, Satriani did not “[get] to that riff first. Enanitos Verdes did two years before him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH4gaPHs9Hc
No wait, sorry, it was actually Cat Stevens back in 1973. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM9zKyDz4ko
Cat Stevens should sue all of them!
Look, copyright law is complex, you need to have some protection for both parties. Each artist needs to understand that they are protected, but this means they also have to have due diligence in only releasing significantly original material.
It’s the same in the IP laws for software, and patent laws.
Obviously, if I burn a cd of Coldplay tunes and relabel it as mine, that’s wrong, but you cannot say that’s where it ends. What if I do that, but overdub something, or reverse one bar, or change the tempo. It is still not significantly different.
The hazy ground is really around the amount of similarity required.
The problem is, our brains work in amazing ways, that tune might have been playing in a car that pulled up next to them at the lights, the tune stuck in Coldplays mind without them even knowing it, so they reproduced it THINKING it was an original. Can’t prove either way, so “intent” is not really a major factor, and nor is ignorance a suitable defence. Precedents exist here.
So the three things that sway it for Joe in my mind:
1) The songs just sound too close. That rarely happens without some external influence or cross talk.
2) Coldplay are reported to have once stated “They are the worlds greatest plaigerists” – unsure of source.
3) Coldplay are also reported to have denied knowing who Joe Satriani was, despite naming him specifically in an interview back in 2002 – unknown source.
4) Precedence is set, there is a historic case to have even granted damages when the artist “unknowingly” copied some other song.
“UNKNOWINGLY” – that means there was not only no intent, but even a belief that you didn’t copy it and assure people you would never do that is not a defence.
The only way out of this for Coldplay is to discuss a settlement with Joe and to acknowledge it’s his work. I would not be backing Coldplay on this one, there are too many factors tipping it Joe’s way.
So true “Ned”. Come on people, there are only so many chord arrangements possible and it is inevitable that some combinations will sound similar.
Hey jerky,it’s America. Everyone has the right to sue who ever they want. Sue who? Sue you, for punitive damages…
Interesting comments by all the above. George Harrison/My Sweet Lord etc. showed that even ’subsconscious’ plagiarism CAN be a crime. Note this too: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/1221902.stm
Give me a break, these riffs are taken from scales and chord progressions that have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. I’m a big Joe fan but come on, wipe your tears and move on!
There are only a certain number of pleasing notes and melodies[sic]? Really? What’s prevented say Radiohead from ripping off Joe? I for one despise Joe’s music and Coldplay’s ‘music’- so I have no skin in the game here as far as that goes. I listened to both, side by side and Coldply ripped off the melody. Intentional or not, they did. Pay up, Ice Ice Baby.
With all due respect to Simon Vozick-Levinson, we’re not only talking about the same chord progression, we’re also talking about the same tempo, and (for lack of a better word) meter (I don’t know how else to describe the pacing of a guitar solo as juxtaposed against a singing vocal).
I mean, you can superimpose the two songs on top of each other and they sounds like they were recorded in the same recording session.
I think there’s too much there to be considered pure accident.
As it was once said “True genius is not remembering where the inspiration came from”.
Well, I love Coldplay and Satriani. So whatever.
But Coldplay has done this in the past. Coldplay used a good chunk of “Computer Love” by Kraftwerk as the basis of “Talk” for X and Y. But what was different about the past is that they got the permission from Kraftwerk. If they went out of their way to get permission for an almost unknown retro techno band why would they ignore someone like Satriani?
So two options are possible. First, they asked and were denied. If this is the case, then there are likely records of this and Coldplay will be in the wrong. But if this is not the case, then judging by their history of seeking permission it is likely that it was a mistake.
But copyright law has often made ridiculous things happen, just google “Bittersweet Symphony and Rolling Stones.”
As someone who runs a company that deals with other people’s supposed copyrights all the time, I am watching this case with extreme interest; it could be the one that forces the law to acknowledge that there is nothing completely original under the sun, and to relax copyright standards so widespread and free creativity can make a return from its obscurity. It’s time to take a realistic look at the creative process and for artists to stop screwing each other over “who popped its cherry first”; nobody did and no one can. The source of imagined things is a universal one and all can plug into it.
I’m tired of having to cover my mouth and watch my step to self-censor just because I didn’t have the fortune to be born 50 years ago “when all the good stuff was first being made”. Eventually the last song will be written and the last existing chord and melody progression will be recorded and copyrighted. What then?
I hope this is the case that redefines “copyright” once and for all.
Tom- the video in question altered the songs to make them sound more like each other- the pitch has been raised and the tempo adjusted to match Santriani’s.
You know how I know you’re gay? You like Coldplay.
Uh huh, because Chris Martin sits around listening to old Joe Satriani music. Does -anyone- listen to Joe Satriani music?
I just watched a video overlapping them to show the similarity, but the only real similarity is a three chord progression used multiple times in the song. Nothing to sue anyone over if you ask me. It was purely chance that they used the same chords. So Satriani really has no case at all.
Simon -
If you knew more about the muzic biz (or at least put in 5 min on Google before writing this piece), you’d see what the “big deal” is about this suit.
Honestly people check your facts, listen to the two songs and you will find that not only is the chord progression the same, but so are the melodies. In effect parts of the 2 songs are identical. For those who don’t know the history of “If I could fly” it did take Satriani a very long time to get it right (taking several years to get a guitar build especially for the song). If it was my song damn right I would sue them, especially seeing as it’s a song dedicated to his wife.
I am pretty sure that 4 measures was the legal amount of music that could be the same without being “technical plagiarism”. It doesn’t matter if they intended to or not, it is still an important issue that should be looked into. This is definitely more than the legal amount of “sameness” or “similarity”. If you write something that you think you read somewhere else, you better find the quote. If you play something that you vibed off of someone else you better find the source. They are professionals. Someone at the label, if not the band, should have been on top of this. Satriani is not an unknown artist, especially to musicians.
Erin, you obviously don’t have a clue as to what this is about. You can’t copyright a ‘riff’, nor can you copyright a chord progression. What you can copyright is a melody, or a lyric. Coldplay obviously took the harmony (chord progression), and the melody, and put words to it. Simple as that. Is it possible that it was coincidence? Sure, nothing is new under the sun, but it is coldplay after all. The melody/harmony is the exact same as his copyrighted melody/harmony. The key center means nothing.
I played Satriani’s song for my 9 1/2 year old son who loves Coldplay and asked him what song this guy was playing. He said Viva la Vida without even knowing the details of why I asked him. Yes, they sound similar, but did Coldplay rip the song, I don’t, it’s definitely debateable.
Satch is right to complain, I mean it’s pretty undeniable that they yanked the riff.
Do I think he’ll win the lawsuit? Probably not. The most pleasing result to me would be for the two to collaborate on another version of the song. There’s a clip on youtube that puts the two songs together in the same key, and Coldplay sounds sick with Satch’s guitar added to the mix.
Everybody should read Joe Satriani’s interview at MusicRadar.com to see how much work he put into the song. He was writing it for years and recorded and released it in 2004.
I think that if they DID steal the riff, which as a 18 year guitar player – it seems musically a little “too” similar for my comfort, they should pay up.
I think this will get settled out of court, and it will be the SECOND time in 18 months that Coldplay had to settle the exact same type of lawsuit.
Everyone makes mistakes. Two lawsuits, only a few months apart….. hmmmm I guess we will see.
I agree with you completely. Music, pretty much anything creative, has a finite number of riffs, plots, whatever. A little similarity is not plagiarism, and it’s pretty much inevitable. It just so happens that this similarity is with a huge hit by Coldplay. That seems to be the only problem.
Does that mean I can record “You aint nothing but a hound dog” as long as I change the rest of the song on guitar??? I think this would open up a can of worms if Cold Play wins. It’s plagiarism no matter how you look at it..
Well I’d just like to bring up the fact that Joe Satriani’s only good album was Surfing With the Alien. The rest of them sucked!
I think it’s ridiculous that Coldplay would copy a Satch riff when they’re already too busy copying other bands like U2!
I hate to admit it, but this is the correct response to Joe’s allegations.