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
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.