OK, now that I've got your attention, I can get on to my point.

 

First off, in the spirit of full disclosure, this is where I'm coming from. I am not a Coldplay fan, though I have nothing against them. They seem to have some decent catchy pop music that appeals to a lot people and that's cool. I am a casual Joe Satriani fan and have seen him live several times over many years, but his music is not my favorite by a long shot. More importantly, I am a musician with graduate degrees in composition so I have a pretty good handle on how music works and the writing process etc. I've been following this Satriani vs. Coldplay thing and read a lot of varying opinions by people on the internet and thus I have some observations. Please understand, that my main intent is not to trash Coldplay, but rather explain a lot of misinformation out there and hopefully get some of the emotions on both sides into check. I've read several comments which say something to the effect of whoever you are a fan of is how you view the situation. My observations by and large corroborate that. However, what we should be after here is the truth and a rational reaction to the situation. One more thing, the Coldplagiarism imagery is just for fun and intended to be funny. It's a bit of a cheap shot, but it's a good one. So on to the more serious matter.

 

There seems to be a lot of discussion about Coldplay's intent here and whether they knowingly plagiarized Joe Satriani. From a musical perspective, there is no question that the passages in question are almost identical. I know there are some of you who rationalize this or genuinely don't understand why they are similar because your casual experience with music is limited. I'll explain why they are similar later. In any case, I can guarantee you that there is no experienced musician or music scholar who does not understand that we are dealing with almost the same musical content. So really, this is a given. What I see is a lot of Coldplay defenders say is that they didn't copy Satriani for various reasons. They didn't need to. They don't even know who Satriani is, etc. It's only a small section of the song (so what I say to that!!). That really doesn't matter, unless the lawsuit gets really ugly and there is a punitive portion that comes into play. What matters is that the music is the same and Satirani is the intellectual property owner. If you walk into a store and accidentally knock over something fragile and it breaks, doesn't the store owner still hold you liable for the damage even if you did not intend to do it? This is just common sense. So no matter why this is the case, Coldplay has a problem here.

 

The bottom line as to whether the similarities were intentional or not is something that probably only the band really knows. It will be hard to prove it one way or the other. I will say that these sections of music are so similar that it is more likely than not that Coldplay was influenced by it in some fashion, rather than it coming completely from them. However, it is not impossible and I could give them the benefit of the doubt.

 

Speaking strictly on a musical level, this case of copyright infringement is so much more significant than most other claims. Most of the non-musicians are using whatever ability they have to develop their opinions, but in many cases, these are not informed ones. For example. I could play a very nice soothing song for my mother and then play the same melody on a distorted electric guitar and to her it's like a totally different song. She doesn't even recognize it as being identical. So that's one extreme and explains why some out there genuinely don't understand what is going on here.

 

There are several factors in comparing these two sections of music. What's happening harmonically and melodically? The chord progression, that is the harmony, is not something that is subject to copyright typically, certainly not in simple pop songs for sure. That's why the similar Tom Petty/Red Hot Chili Peppers "controversy" was different than the current situation. The Tom Petty song "Mary Jane’s Last Dance" had a similar chord progression to the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Dani California, though the third chord is Major in Petty's and it is minor in the Chili Peppers. The melody on top of that is different. The same can be said about a lot of songs. The Police song "So Lonely" & Green Day's "When I Come Around" share the same chord progression too, but they are different songs otherwise. So really the melody is what is more important when it comes to copyright infringement. Now let's look at what is going on in the Coldplay/Joe Satriani example.

 

Harmony - First of all, the songs are different keys, which doesn't mean anything, though some out there are misinformed and seem to think so. If key mattered, I could take any song out there, transpose it to a new key and call it my own, while being safe from a copyright infringement suit. It's just nonsense. Key is irrelevant. What we are after here is the chord pattern relationships that apply universally in any key. Music theorists use Roman numerals to describe these relationships. With regards to the section of music in question, these are the chord progressions.

 

Joe Satriani

 

iv - VII - III - i

 

Coldplay

 

VI - VII - III - i

 

Joe Satriani actually uses a slightly fancier chord with an added note, but I'm trying to keep this as simple as possible so I did not add the extra nuances above. So the main difference here seems to be the first chord. Now, I'm going to explain why they are very similar. The opening iv chord in the Satriani is actually a seventh chord which means there is an added note that gives the sound more color if you will. Using the key of the Satriani (b minor), let's look at how that chord is spelled - E-G-B-D. The D note is the added seventh. Now using the same key (not the original Coldplay key), how about the Coldplay VI chord - G-B-D. Notice any similarities? All this means is that the bass note of the chord is different, but they end up having a similar sound because the upper part of the chord is the same.

 

Again, the chord progression is not what gets Coldplay into trouble here, it's largely the melody. The above analysis is there for the purpose of explaining the facts behind the two chord progressions. There's a lot of misinformation out there and a lot of people don't know what they are talking about. I hope this helps explain it, but it's hard to talk theory to people who don't understand music.

 

Melody - Since it's not the chord progression that offends the law and it's 99% identical, it's fair to say that they are really the same chord progression. Had the melody been different over it, there would be no case here. The combination of a virtually identical melodic line (save a couple dynamic flourishes) with the same chord progression gives Satriani the grounds to seek recourse here. As an added bonus, the songs have an almost identical rhythm and tempo, which is not a copyrightable element, but it adds another dimension of similarity to further bolster his claims.

 

There is absolutely no doubt that Coldplay employed Satriani's intellectual property. This can be proven as a matter of fact. What can't be proven is under what circumstances. Did they know or was it an accident, but again it doesn't matter. Unless you get people as dumb as the original OJ jury that aren't interested in real facts, this is an easy win for Satriani.

 

Supposedly Satriani came to the band to try to settle the matter and Coldplay blew him off. I don't think it is fair to blame Satriani for being a jerk about this. He appears to have viewed a lawsuit as a last resort. From what I know of Satriani, he appears to be a decent and reasonable guy. I can't imagine that he would not have been willing to work out a compromise that avoided court. So I'm really at a loss as to why Coldplay has handled this so poorly. If in fact Satriani did come to them and they didn't want to deal with it, they were fools given the facts. What I would have done if I were them would be just release a statement saying that this was an accident, but considering the almost identical use of music, Satriani will be added as a co-writer and thus share in the royalties. Everyone would come out of this fine and Coldplay would not look like arrogant pop stars. I'd be extremely surprised if Satriani wouldn't have been cool with that. Many of you may not feel this way, but this incident has hurt Coldplay's reputation because the facts are so damning. I can understand that if this was purely coincidental, they might be defensive about the situation, but I hope for their sake that they put their egos aside and do what is best for them. They risk not only a legal loss, but a public relations one too. I don't have an axe to grind with them and my only reaction to Coldplay in the past has been, oh yeah, I've heard that song, it's a good pop song, whenever I hear their music. However now, I'm not sure whether or not they are just arrogant or quite frankly not musically competent enough to understand that Satirani's intellectual property is in their song. The fact that Satriani's work appears in Coldplay's music does not necessarily make Coldplay lame, but the way they handle it does. That is something they can control.

 

One more thought. This case goes well beyond musical similarities of many other accusations I've seen. I've noticed people trying to use some obscure music by other artists that shows they had something similar even before Satriani or Coldplay. All I can say, is that I have yet to see anything that is as similar and so clear cut as the Coldplay/Joe Satriani comparison. Those other examples have very different harmonic content and the melodies are not similar enough either. If Coldplay had a very close melody line with a different chord progression, this would not be such a slam dunk, but remember both components in this case are almost identical.

 

I don't know if this has made anybody look at the situation differently than before, but all I can say is that I have yet to see a methodic rational fact based argument that can demonstrate that the harmonic and melodic content in question in the Coldplay song is different from Satriani's. Non musicians without any training, subjectively saying it doesn't sound similar enough to me doesn't cut it.

 

 

 

BTW - If you like the image at the top of this post, you can get it on the following items:

 

LINKS REMOVED

Shove it.

oh God.

Shove it.

 

I guess an intelligent response would be too much to ask for?

Guys, don't respond to him. He is a troll because this post is already in the proper thread (where it should be) and he's created this thread, again, just to start trouble.

tl;dr

OMG dude..

Do you think people's going to take the time to read your endless "observation"?

If Coldplay did copy that mediocre song, they did something beautiful with it.

Suck it up.

Frances Limon by Los Enanitos Verdes. Look it up.

too long to read it

Damn, this guy is going to get banned and i am never going to get him to answer my question.

he won't get banned probably... but we don't need coldplay haters here really

ugh :thinking: what is this fuckery?

Can someone please stop this guy? He already posted this thread before, and when it was moved to the proper thread, he posted it again... :rolleyes:

 

No one's going to agree with you and buy your stuff on this board, whoever you are, go find some Joe Satriani board instead.

Yeah, coming here with a giant "Viva la Fraude" banner promotes intelligent, reasoned discussion.

Like I said earlier...someone should contact the estate of Eugene Delacroix because that poster just copied/plagiarize his artwork and you know he does not have permission to do so. Just because he added some words to the painting does not mean it's a totally new piece of artwork. LOL!!!

Damn, this guy is going to get banned and i am never going to get him to answer my question.

 

Well, I was hoping that there was some intelligent life here that actually would deal with the facts I laid out. I did not just engage in some drive-by name calling. I've noticed a couple other Satriani trolls here who were rude that seemed to be tolerated. Look it's your place and I'm just a guest so it's up to you, but I I was hoping that a free exchange of ideas might take place here.

^^ :thinking: We already have like 3 other threads where many ideas have been exchanged.. just go look at them. I think the people here are sick of being bothered with this stuff

This guy thinks that his intelligence is so high that he can see that Coldplay plagiarized, and we can't see that because we're OBVIOUSLY so much less intelligent than him? Wow.

Well, I was hoping that there was some intelligent life here that actually would deal with the facts I laid out. I did not just engage in some drive-by name calling. I've noticed a couple other Satriani trolls here who were rude that seemed to be tolerated. Look it's your place and I'm just a guest so it's up to you, but I I was hoping that a free exchange of ideas might take place here.

 

Oh no, I think you're rude. But I want to hear what you have to say.

Can someone please stop this guy? He already posted this thread before, and when it was moved to the proper thread, he posted it again... :rolleyes:

 

No one's going to agree with you and buy your stuff on this board, whoever you are, go find some Joe Satriani board instead.

 

How about being helpful? I have no idea where my other thread is. I'm new to this forum. I did not intend to have duplicate entries, but I have no idea what happened to my first one and I thought I screwed something up and it did not get posted.

but I I was hoping that a free exchange of ideas might take place here.

 

:laugh3: Then you shouldn't have:

 

a) posted with a giant "Viva la Fraude" picture, "Copyright Infringement World Tour" signature, and a name like "coldplagiarism".

 

b) Reposted this after it was already moved.

click on your username and then statistics and then "find all posts by..."

 

there's no need to post the same things many times :wink:

 

 

and I agree.. if you want to discuss, your signature doesn't really help

Dude we have already done that with alot of other Joe fans for awhile now and alot of us are already done with talkin about it........

Very well put together ... but you should practice law because usually they use big words and long paragraphs to cover up BS. :D

 

peace!

Oh no, I think you're rude. But I want to hear what you have to say.

 

What do you think is rude?