Thanks to Katie for bringing this to my attention: the story is, 52-year-old rock guitarist Joe Satriani is suing British rock band Coldplay for plagiarism. Satriani's copyright infringement suit, filed on December 4th in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Coldplay song "Viva La Vida" incorporates "substantial original portions" of his 2004 instrumental "If I Could Fly." Satriani is seeking a jury trial, damages and "any and all profits" attributable to the alleged copyright infringement.
My verdict: not "substantial portions" and good luck finding a jury without any Coldplay fans. I think there might be one melody line in question that's used throughout Viva la Vida: "I used to rule the world, seas would rise when I gave the word..." (the riff is about 55 seconds into Satriani's song). Not substantial by my books. Actually, I like the song "If I Could Fly". I listened to it a couple times on youtube and then downloaded it on iTunes (the guy can shred) - which made me think, this is probably all Joe wanted - people who hadn't heard of him before to download his music.
Well, judge for yourself:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
This is great publicity for Satch. He needed it and I think that is the only reason he brought this up. I mean really, when was the last time an artist sued another artist for plagiarism? Do you have an update on this story? I haven't heard much.
Also, glad to see Brook Waggoner make your top 10 albums list :-)
I need to bookmark your blog. It would actually keep me up in the world of quality music.
Thanks for your comments, Peter!
Thanks for the comments Peter. I couldn't find any updates on Coldplay vs. Satriani but did come across another very amusing angle...
Post a Comment