September 2009
Coldplay Copyright Infringement Claim dismissed.
A Copyright claim filed by Joe Satriani against Coldplay was dismissed by a U.S court last week with sources suggesting that Coldplay came to an out of court financial settlement with the guitarist.
Joe Satriani had filed the claim last December in relation to Coldplay’s hit single “Viva La Vida” which he felt was an obvious copy of his own instrumental “If I could Fly”.
He reportedly stated that the moment he heard Coldplay’s song he instantly recognised it as his own work. His actions were no doubt further fuelled by the mass of emails he allegedly received from fans notifying him of what they felt was an obvious rip off of his song.
Coldplay denied the allegations stating that any similarities were purely coincidental. They added in court that Joe Satriani’s work should not in any case enjoy copyright arguing that it lacked originality (a common defence raised against allegations of copyright infringement).
By settling out of court Coldplay were able to avoid having to face the possibility of a copyright infringement judgment found against them and as set out by the terms of the dismissal will not be required to admit to any wrongdoing.
BRIFFA comment
If the claim had proceeded the Judge’s decision on whether Coldplay had infringed Joe Satriani’s work would have been based primarily on a comparison of their respective pieces of music.
Consequently if the two pieces sounded substantially similar unless Coldplay could present overwhelming evidence to the contrary it would be likely that the Judge would have found that they had copied Joe Satriani’s work.
Though copyright infringement will not occur where a party can prove that their work was their own independent creation i.e. not based on any other work, trying to prove this to a Judge in instances such as the above where two pieces of work are substantially similar is near impossible.
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