I don't think it is going to hurt Coldplay, legally speaking, that EMI pulled it. It just makes the nebulous concept of "music ownership" more concrete.

 

For the record, the YouTube pages that discuss the Satriani/Coldplay case are some of the most vile places I have ever been to. I mean, out of pure interest, I have visited some of those discussions to see if anybody has any good insight. But all I am finding is some of the most hateful speech I have ever seen. I try not to take it serious, but it makes me sick to my stomach.

 

You are so right those youtube pages can get pretty sick.

 

I hate it when people talk bad about Coldplay!!!:angry:

 

It feels like they are insulting me when they are insulting Coldplay.

 

I just want this to blow over:cry:

Why is it such a big deal that they removed the original video (and every video that it spawned)? I'm surprised that it hadn't been removed earlier! It's part of a lawsuit now, they can't just have videos making allegations floating on Youtube... Especially one that changes the tempo, etc. to prove a point.

Why is it such a big deal that they removed the original video (and every video that it spawned)? I'm surprised that it hadn't been removed earlier! It's part of a lawsuit now, they can't just have videos making allegations floating on Youtube... Especially one that changes the tempo, etc. to prove a point.

 

Agreed and Cause people are sooo f@@ken stupid........Coldplay probably had nothing to do with it but thay still get bashed for it!......

Satriani vs Coldplay: court docs and audio links

 

So British superband of the moment Coldplay is being sued in Los Angeles for plagiarising guitarist Joe Satriani in their hit Viva la Vida. Joe says that the song - also the title of Coldplay’s fourth album “incorporated substantial, original portions of Plaintiff’s composition ‘If I Could Fly‘.”

 

Read the actual court document detailing the case against Coldplay here.

 

The court docs were filed last week - 4 December - and so of course, the Internet being the extraordinary global gossip network that it is, the story has swamped a million blogs and newspapers. Joe has done an interview with Music Radar saying that it “felt like a dagger went right through my heart” when he first heard Coldplay’s composition. Following the media frenzy, Coldplay has responded with a note on its website saying “if there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental” and asking that Joe “respectfully accept our assurances” that they didn’t rip him off.

 

Something that always bugs me about stories covering lawsuits is that media outlets never provides links the documents themselves, so I thought I’d fix that and go grab the docs and post them here.

 

Meanwhile, the YouTubers have leapt into action, posting videos (more audio files with pics added) that play the clips apart and together. There is no doubt that the two songs have the same pace, the same melody, the same chord progression - and this has sparked an even bigger frenzy.

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofFw9DKu_I[/ame]

 

But back the court docs themselves. So far there have been four filings in case CV08-07987.

 

• The initial complaint filed on the 4th December (and entered into court on the 8th - after Joe gave his interview, so don’t think that Joe and his lawyers aren’t making as much of this as they can).
  
• A notice of interested parties - a legal thing and basically just a list of Coldplay members with their record label (Capitol)
  
• A copy of the filing of copyright infringement with the Copyright Office in Washington DC
  
• And a note that on 9 December that the case had been “heard” and had entered into the system with Judge Dean D. Pregerson presiding over the case.
  

 

So, what do the court docs actually say?

 

Well, that Mr Satriani is one of the “premier rock guitarists” in the world - which I have to admit is news to me as I’d never heard of him before now. But apparently he has sold 10 million albums - so it must be a US thing.

 

He alleges that the Coldplay song “copies and incorporated substantial, original portions of Plaintiff’s composition ‘If I Could Fly‘” and that there is a “substantial similarity between the two works”.

 

The case has three claims: Copyright Infringement; Constructive Trust (basically that Coldplay have received money that belong to him and so are “involuntary trustees”); and For An Accounting - which basically says that he doesn’t know how much Coldplay have earned from Viva la Vida and so that is why there isn’t an amount in the lawsuit that he is seeking.

 

He is however seeking “any and all profits of Defendants that are attributable to their acts of infringement” - basically any money at all that Coldplay have made from sales of the single, and quite possible from album sales and gigs where they have played the song.

 

As unlikely as that may seem, it has already happened once or twice in the past - most famously when The Verve had to give all the money it made from Bittersweet Symphony to The Rolling Stones because they stole the basic orchestral flow of the song.

 

However, Mr Satriani assertion that Coldplay - and everyone else - be prevented from playing the song while the court case in action is never going to happen and is just an example of an LA lawyer aiming for everything.

 

So, will Joe win?

 

Well, in cases such as this, it’s more a matter of proving how big you are, rather than being bigger than who you are suing. So, for example, George Harrison of The Beatles has to pay damages from his hit single My Sweet Lord because it was very similar to He’s So Fine by The Surpremes. The copying was unintentional, George said - and no one has any reason to disbelieve him - in much the same way we have no reason to disbelieve Coldplay when it says it unintentionally copied Joe’s music.

 

What Joe will have to prove is that he is a big enough fish. He doesn’t have to be as big as Coldplay but he should be a name that people already recognise. He fails that in my eyes, but then the court case is in America and I’m not American (although I am living here) so I’m a hopeless judge of his stature in the eyes of people here.

 

Will it mean the end of music as we know it? Nope. These things keep rolling on. Bigger principles than whether Coldplay can buy another mansion are at foot and they will barely notice the cash. If you want evidence of the fact that music will keep rolling on - consider the irony of [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVInsscTFQ8]The Verve singer Richard Ashcroft singing Bittersweet Symphony with Coldplay[/ame] live on stage.

 

http://kierenmccarthy.com

 

thanks to coldplayzone for the heads up about this article.

this is a really long thread so i can't read it all.. hopefully what i'm saying hasn't already been said twenty thousand times :)

 

i think musicians should really keep focusing on writing music.. this lawsuit is really embarassing for satriani, i use to respect him, somehow, but now how can i?

 

that part of the song (verse in viva la vida, chorus in if i could fly) is a really really common melody in music, as it is the melody of starway to heaven riff or the bass progression of stand by me

 

satriani song is complex and its chorus is just a passage, [ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qL4OCL2r-ZQ]it's the same solo of enanitos[/ame], [ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_cgy8TBr_dk]babik reinhardt[/ame] (even if it's a cover performed by a younger relative), [ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uUXda-RTE_c]same melody as cat steven's love/heaven, min 3.18[/ame] [ame=http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=s_wGoefyLTA]and i'm in love[/ame]

 

viva la vida is complex as well, strings are the most direct melody, the chorus is strong, the vocal "instrumental" (ohhhh) is very important, and then the verse is important too even if it's connected to this melody used by many artists

 

i find this lawsuit really embarassing for satch because it looks like he is trying to gain money and fame

If Joe Satriani was so mad about Coldplay copying Viva la Vida, why didn't he say anything when the album came out in June? I find it very coincidental that he puts out this lawsuit right when the Grammy nods came out.

 

I heard the video on YouTube, but the key of Satriani's is in D flat, whereas Coldplay's is in A flat. They're not the same!

Doing interviews and everything is fine but why the fuck does he have to make a podcast? Does the public opinion really matter in this case?? PUBLICITY

Oh my God...what an bastard! >:(

First of all, why would Coldplay...COLDPLAY..steal a song from this loser? Obviously he can't get as famous by himself, so he has to sue musicians that ARE famous in order to step into the light.

I just can't believe anyone would believe him...The fact that he does it right after they're nominated for 7 grammies, he wants ALL money from it (UTTERLY ridiculous), no one has ever really heard of him...It's just a load of crap. This guy is scum of the earth.

That was an interesting article...thanks. Just reading the court docs bring an entirely new sense of realism to the situation. A very messy case, indeed.

stupid.

he says that the minute he heard it, he knew it was "his," but he waits until MONTHS after to say anything. oh, wait, could that be because of the GRAMMYS?

 

 

:(

Christmas gifts for rockstars: what they really deserve

 

What should Kanye, Ringo and Chris Martin get?

The MusicRadar Team, Sun 21 Dec 2008, 12:02 pm UTC

 

Star: Chris Martin

Gift: Joe Satriani's Surfing With The Alien

 

 

Coldplay's Chris Martin recently responded to Joe Satriani's plagiarism lawsuit by saying that "when these things happen it's a coincidence and we're as surprised by it as anybody else." Be that as it may, we'd like to present Martin with a CD copy of Satch's breakthrough album, which is full of rockin' tunes like Satch Boogie, Ice 9 and the gorgeous ballad Always With You, Always With Me. We're not saying Chris Martin would be 'influenced' by the album in any way. We just think he'd enjoy it.

 

http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/christmas-gifts-for-rockstars-what-they-really-deserve-188481/3

A little off topic here but it seems suing musicians for copyright infringement seems to be common among the top Grammy nominees. I just read that Lil' Wayne, who has 8 nominations, is also being sued. However, he has two lawsuits against him. What is interesting about the lawsuits against him is the timing of the lawsuits. Both of the lawsuits against Lil' Wayne were filed early in the year not months after the CD came out but about a month after, while Joe waits months and months before he files suit. Though not the best thing to do but it does make one wonder about Joe's intention and so forth when one compares the timing of his lawsuit with other similair lawsuits.

In ancient Greece, potter used to compete with one another by copying each other's pots and artistry, and trying to improve on the other potter's work. Maybe not the best analogy, but in a way, it's only natural, so even if they were influenced by Joe's music, it's still to me who makes the more desirable product and thus more sales deserves credit. Plus, it's like copyrighting a major chord progression - this would be like patenting the water molecule.

But how well know is Joe Satriani? About the most remembered band he was with was Deep Purple, and that was a long, long time ago when they had some hits. You still here them played occasionally on the heavy metal stations and on "classic hits" - but all that often. And while a few have heard of Deep Purple, I think only the music aficionados who are into heavy metal bands deeply will even have a clue who he is. And I like Deep Purple, and yet I hadn't a clue who Joe was!:laugh3:

Deep Purple - the Heavy Metal One-Hit Wonder band. They are only famous because of the song Smoke on the Water. The funny thing is the guitar rift in that song was neither written nor performed by Joe. LOL!! He didn't join the band until the '90s so it makes sense that a majority of the people would not be familiar with him. LOL!!

They sound similar, but that could just be coincidence.

 

Maybe Chris once heard the song and it got stuck in the back of his mind, so when writing viva la vida, it came out without him knowing

IMPORTANT! Joe Satriani Copied the song called "If I Could Fly" from ANOTHER Band !

 

the band is called "Enanitos Verdes" the lead singer s name is Frances Limon

this song came out 2 years before joe satrianis if i could fly!!!!

 

WE all need to write to the oracle to tell chris martin and the boys to make this PUBLIC let it be KNOWN in the media, coldplays name is being dragged in the mudd when they are innocent! joe is the one who is a theft!!! we need to contact Frances Limon and the band to tell them to sue joe satriani!!

cat stevens and marty balin should also sue joe satriani

 

ALSO CHECK OUT !!!!

Heaven by cat Stevens 1973

Hearts by Marty Balin 1980

 

joe copied them all !sounds the same!!

 

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G57CgtX-BsI&feature=related]YouTube - ENANITOS VERDES - FRANCES LIMON[/ame]

Ha! What a charlatan!!:P

theres more this is from 1973 by cat stevens

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8-jEdBqbbE]YouTube - Heaven 1973 Cat Stevens[/ame]

 

 

sounds alot like if i oculd fly

 

 

AND

 

 

Hearts by Marty Balin

 

[[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTp0P5xMHog]YouTube - Hearts by Marty Balin of Jefferson starship[/ame]

:o this Satriani just needed some attention from everyone :dozey:

nice find, mate!!:clap:

 

 

(joe satriani):whip:

joe satriani = :devil:

Well, one of my local radio station even mentioned it around some weeks ago when Satriani claimed that Coldplay 'stole' from him, that Satriani himself seemed to have stolen the song from someone else in the first place, so I guess a lot of media know this already ....

 

But's it's always nice to get some attention and being mentioned in the press, eh?!?! :rolleyes: (btw. Mark, I felt free to use your very personal smiley just for this case, hope you are okay with it ;) )

:rolleyes: (btw. Mark, I felt free to use your very personal smiley just for this case, hope you are okay with it ;) )

 

As long as I get my royalty payment, I don't mind at all!!:P

As long as I get my royalty payment, I don't mind at all!!:P

 

The cheque is in the mail ... ;)

 

If you don't receive anything, blame the post or could it be that I also sent it to that certain P.O. Box in Cheadle?!?!? :wink3:

The cheque is in the mail ... ;)

 

If you don't receive anything, blame the post or could it be that I also sent it to that certain P.O. Box in Cheadle?!?!? :wink3:

 

What's going on in Cheadle?:confused: