December 2008
Coldplay: New Song Same Old Riff
World famous rock band, Coldplay, are being sued by a little known American guitarist who claims the title track from their latest album, Viva La Vida, incorporates “substantial original portions” of one of his songs. The song itself is credited to the band's four members: Chris Martin, Johnny Buckland, Will Champion and Guy Berryman.
Joe Satriani, who has been a session guitarists with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Deep Purple and Alice Cooper, claims that a guitar riff featured on ‘Viva La Vida' is taken from his instrumental song, 'If I Could Fly', which he released 4 years ago on his album 'Is There Love In Space?'. Satriani is so certain that he has filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement at the Los Angeles Federal court, claiming “any and all profits” accrued from sales of the track.
This is the second time Coldplay have got themselves into trouble over this track. Previously another American group called Creaky Boards claimed that they came up with the melody for the song which features on their track, which is ironically named, “The Songs I Didn’t Write”. Coldplay’s response at that stage was to place both songs on their website to allow the public to compare the tracks. While Creaky Boards initially claimed that Coldplay’s Chris Martin had heard their track when he attended one of their concerts in October 2007 it later transpired that Coldplay had in fact written the song before this gig in March 2007 leaving Creaky Boards’ Andrew Hoepfner to conclude that both bands must have been inspired by the computer game, the Legend of Zelda!
This time Coldplay have responded to this latest allegation with the following statement 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 or have any influence on the song Viva La Vida. We respectfully ask him to accept our assurances of this and wish him well with all future endeavours. Coldplay.”
Briffa’s comment
Stories like this have long been part of rock folklore, however establishing a copyright claim in such circumstances can be extremely difficult.
In order to succeed in such a claim the copyright owner needs to establish that the infringer has made a copy or a substantial copy of the relevant piece of a music. While a comparison of the samples in this case does point to certain similarities Coldplay can always argue, and they have done in this instance, that such similarities are a mere coincidence.
If Satriani cannot establish a link between him and Coldplay, where the band from Camden had an opportunity, or at least an incentive, to copy Satriani’s music, it may be very difficult for Satriani to succeed in this claim. We will await to see the outcome of the case but what is guaranteed everyone concerned has enjoyed a great deal of publicity from it.
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