I suppose this is one of those areas that could potentially be redefined by this case.

 

Could be, though I hope we don't see something quite like this again to warrant it.

Ugh..... do we really need ANOTHER one of these??? :dozey:

 

Shouldn't all the Satriani crap be in the same thread????

 

Sorry but i'm so sick of this going on an on and on......... not one of us can do shit!!!!

 

Not the Satriani fans nor a single coldplayer......... get over it already!!!!

 

Who else is sick of all this??? :inquisitive:

 

I'm sick of it. I think that is because of all the so-called experts who feel that they must impart their knowledge on the others who they think don't know anything.

Again the coincidence factor is irrelevant. Satch's music appears in the Coldplay. Case closed.

 

I think this is a super, super strong argument. I just don't know how the courts will come down on this.

Well, I've seen some bonehead Satch fan comments too like those who definitively say it was copied intentionally. They have no way of knowing that. However, my main issue is the lack of musical understanding and the Satriani fan base is almost exclusively musicians so they tend to already understand the musical points better. I'm sure some people will take offense to that and I'm sorry about that, but it's just a simple fact. I tried to say it as non-dick-like as possible. Satriani has just always been a niche artist that musicians follow. There was a brief period where he had mainstream popularity, but it was a fluke and I'm sure it surprised him as much as it did the rest of us. He just doesn't appeal to the mass public, only nerdy musicians.

 

Generalizations, generalizations... :rolleyes:

Dude as non-dickish you wish to sound, the Viva La Fraude banners are about as dickish as you can get. They'd be funny as hell on a Satch forum but here you're pretty well much pissing in the wind of public opinion.

 

Honestly, I thought your original post was well thought out and if this comes to a head....well shit, I'm not a lawyer but there are certainly 5 (maybe 6, I haven't listened closely enough)consecutive notes that are the same. If that constitues plagarism, well Coldplay are fucked and an out of court settlement is the best they can hope for. HOWEVER, they're both under the EMI banner and I'm fairly certain the board are most displeased with this turn of events and I wouldn't be entirely surprised that we hear little more of it.

 

I honestly think Chris didn't directly plagerise the melody, perhaps he was indirectly influenced by it, heard it in a elevator maybe and it popped up in his sub-concience a few days later or perhaps it was just pure chance. It's not a complex melody and it's more than possible it is just purely coincidental. Either way I hope it works out well, I've always been a fond admirer of Joe (hell I even own a Satriani signature Ibanez) but I hope this is swept under the rug and a the matter is dealt with privately. The public court is usually very brutal, ill-informed and unlikely to take any sort of factual evidence into consideration. Either way, it's hurting the public image of both parties.

Sir, ma'am, it, whatever...you still don't get it. You don't think a lot of Coldplay fans haven't discussed the things you are bringing up? Believe it or not but a lot of us have. There are irrelevant comments made by fans by both parties but the majority of fans have discussed those issues and it's a shame that those discussions are overlooked.

I don't claim to know all the kinds of discussion that happen here. I've just observed in a very short period of time that there was a skewed perspective among any gathering of Coldplay fans I've encountered over the last few days and it was clear that there were some important aspects that were being overlooked. That's all.

 

You come to this form because you want Coldplay fans to accept "the facts". That is pretty rude if you ask me. I think any intelligent person will listen and accept the facts that are presented by the experts from both parties and who actually work in the music business for the record companies, and not from someone who "I have a degree in music composition therefore I know what I am talking about and you don't" so-called expert. Unless you actually work for a record company and you are one of their hired professionals and/or expert than you sir or ma'am are not an expert.

I think my experience earning several graduate degrees in music composition and electronic music as well as teaching at a major university gives me a little better insight. Furthermore, I have plenty of experience being around music industry people. My best friend used to work for Columbia records and my ex-girlfriend worked for a music PR film that handled major big-time acts and let me tell you, most of the people there know nothing about music. They know loads about trends and marketing and what they think they can sell, but most record company people couldn't spelled a C Major chord if their life depended on it. Some of them may be passionate about music in the same way that fans are here, but as far as technical musical understanding is concerned, they're clueless. The artists are usually the one who have a better understanding. That is the recording engineers, producers, etc. who are involved in the creative process (although that can even be questionable in some cases).

If you agree the melodies are similar (not exact) which...I also agree and you also said that the rest of the pieces sound nothing a like except for that specific progression ...then do you really think Joe should win and set the precident...because its gonna open doors...big doors...and not very many of them are good for music....

I think you are under the misconception that this situation is very common. This is the only example I can ever think of where it is so clear cut. It's the combination of the melody and the harmony. I'm not worried about a bad precedent at all.

I think (I shouldn't speak for him, but I will) he is saying that it doesn't matter whether it is a coincidence or not. Joe Satriani owns THAT PARTICULAR PIECE OF MUSIC. Maybe it is a coincidence that Coldplay bumped into it (which is what I like to believe), but it just doesn't matter. It is too similar on too many levels Therefore, Satriani should be compensated.

 

I think it is bad for music, too. But I understand this person's argument.

 

bjaiken spoke for me perfectly!! Except for the being bad for music part. This situation is so unique and uncommon that we aren't likely to be dealing with this kind of thing often.

I think my experience earning several graduate degrees in music composition and electronic music as well as teaching at a major university gives me a little better insight. Furthermore, I have plenty of experience being around music industry people. My best friend used to work for Columbia records and my ex-girlfriend worked for a music PR film that handled major big-time acts and let me tell you, most of the people there know nothing about music. They know loads about trends and marketing and what they think they can sell, but most record company people couldn't spelled a C Major chord if their life depended on it. Some of them may be passionate about music in the same way that fans are here, but as far as technical musical understanding is concerned, they're clueless. The artists are usually the one who have a better understanding. That is the recording engineers, producers, etc. who are involved in the creative process (although that can even be questionable in some cases)

 

Oh, I admit...I don't know a lot about music theory. I just simply follow the bands that I like. But, as Mick Jagger once said, "I know it's only Rock N' Roll, but I like it". And I don't want any court case, or guitar virtuoso, messing with that. If he is legally due money, pay the man. Let's just move forward. It is the consequences of this case that scare me.

Could be, though I hope we don't see something quite like this again to warrant it.

It will. I guarantee it.

 

The thing is, it happens all the time in music, but people just go "huh" and get on with their lives, the musicians included. They assume it was coincidence. Coldplay just happened to come across a particularly catchy melody and a creator who is particularly attached to that tune/riff/solo/whatever you want to call it.

 

IF this goes to court and Coldplay loses, the precedent set will be huge. Those other cases that were ignored before will start coming out of the woodwork. Big labels may become legally paranoid, making songwriting difficult and creatively stifling, and tiny labels could be crushed by one of these cases. It could turn into a form of legal bullying- washed up musicians without cases could go after bands on tiny labels that could never afford to fight for a bit of quick cash, and big labels who want to buy a little label or sign someone specific could use the threat of that sort of legal action as leverage.

 

I wasn't even allowed to listen to pop music as a kid, and I've still heard dozens of songs with brief near-identical passages over the years. I'm still trying to figure out which old hymn the first part of Feist's "The Park" is from, because I know it, it's driving me crazy, and everyone else who would know the hymn instantly recognizes that passage in "The Park" the moment I play it for them, even if they can't remember the name either. Think of that times ten. We're dealing with the brink of a legal apocalypse here.

 

Again, fair enough. As I said before, I initially made the graphic to amuse myself and some friends. When I decided to come here, I jut decided to use it for a laugh. Is it wrong that it amuses me? :D

No, it's totally your prerogative, as long as Ian doesn't object (it is his board, after all.) It's equally our right to be thoroughly annoyed by it, and to say so repeatedly. :P:laugh3:

bjaiken spoke for me perfectly!! Except for the being bad for music part. This situation is so unique and uncommon that we aren't likely to be dealing with this kind of thing often.

 

We'll if it's not going to happen often, let's just get it squared away and move on.

Do YOU have a LIFE? sorry to say this but pls.dont waste your time doing this thread and replying to all the poeple.......your just wasting your time...

 

ENJOY THE MUSIC...and DONT CARE .that s IT...

 

No offense but YOUr wasting alot of effort doing paragraphs of nonsense ..clearly you ambitiously took the topic off coldplay riiping off someone ..very seriously.....:rolleyes:.all this stuff always happens to the music industry even the great Beatles it happened to them.so stop wasting your time.and f*ck off this forum if your here for this shit..

Word.

 

 

You know, the history of copywrite is actually pretty fascinating, as I understand it. It was originally set up with the intent of creating a large body of work in the public domain for people to draw from. But then Walt Disney started making lots of money and his company kept getting the laws changed so that they could keep control of Mickey Mouse.

 

But on the downside, this is the sort of mess that happens because of those changes.

 

Here's an interesting fact. Disney used Igor Stravinky's music in the Fantasia film. They initially went to Stravinsky to ask for his permission to use his work and when they could not come to terms, Disney said screw you, I'm going to use it anyway. Stravinsky, who was originally born in Russia, had no recourse because his foreign copyrights did not hold up under then current US law. That's why you see some of Stravinsky's early work with revisions 30-40 years later so he could get a copyright that would hold up in court.

Sorry to rant, however:

 

You cynicism is justified and probably correct. It still doesn't change a damn thing. If you owned the copyright to something that was being used, you would probably want to use it to it's maximum benefit. I'm just saying.

 

True, if in fact this was purely a matter of the recognition of intellectual property. I’m a music fan. Granted, I have no technical training or a graduate degree, but I can play it, read it and mess around writing it. That said, I still don’t see how this is a black and white case of “this sequence of music was written by me - it is my intellectual property - therefore I deserve credit and recognition for it”.

 

This is surely profit driven, and therefore that clouds the whole argument. If it were truly a case of acknowledgment and credit where credit due, why did Satriani not sue the band back in May when this little known four-minute-one-second piece made its way onto iTunes? Why is it only now after the song has received international acclaim and earned the band a string of Grammy nominations that he decides to take this to the courts?

 

Sure, if there even was a grain of truth to the “he-tried-to-but-Chris-and-Co-told-him-to-take-a-hike” rebuttal, then what stopped him trying again (perhaps just a wee bit harder) in the proceeding seven months? Answer: The time was not right to milk the song for the greatest possible money.

 

Admittedly, I won’t pretend to understand exactly what “iv - VII - III – i” VS. “VI - VII - III – i” means. I just don’t see how one line of musical jargon justifies me suddenly changing my tune and believing this is a direct copy, therefore giving Satriani the right to sue the pants off the band. I too have taken a keen interest in the case (mainly because – as I’m sure my cynicism shows - I feel a strong desire to defend Coldplay). Please understand too that this isn’t just a dig at your particular argument, Coldplagiarism, you’ve made your point (albeit with the intent, not unlike someone else, of pocketing some riches in the process).

 

To me, it looks like the general Anti-Coldplay bandwagon appears to share the view that “Coldplay scum” took one listen to Satriani’s tune, took another look at each other, and said “that should fit nicely in that Kahlo number we’ve got”. Then these same people take one listen to a pitch-shifted, tempo-modified video and then think it’s their God-given duty to drive Coldplay back into the fiery depths of hell.

 

At the same time, I’ve seen other musically-qualified folk posting jargon and then giving their reasons as to how this indicates this music is, in fact, not copied (to a legal-worthy degree, anyway). So who do I believe? I completely understand the point that it doesn’t matter if it was coincidental or intentional. What I’m trying to get across is the fact that this is a very hazy situation, driven by the need for money, and therefore it’s very hard to find credibility in Satriani’s argument.

 

If Satriani really felt a “dagger” through his heart after listening to Viva La Vida, then why wait this long? It’s the same deal with Creaky Boards. You can’t tell me that this isn’t a case of the green-eyed-monster. Again, I’m not saying the songs don’t have similar elements. I have ears. Any old Joe could hear that (and, evidently, did). It’s just that I don’t think you can persuade someone that this is a black and white case of robbing someone of their intellectual property when it’s clearly fuelled by the need for profit. If the answer is money, take the "dagger through my heart" emotion out of it.

 

... All of which brings me back to my first point. Your argument, Coldplagiarism, stems from the fact that you’ve seen an opportunity to make a bit of money from this whole situation. Musically trained or not, I won’t be persuaded by Joe Satriani or any bystander to believe that Coldplay, without a shred of doubt, have used a piece of music that is Satriani’s rightful property when the fact of the matter is that this entire palaver is fuelled by the opportunity to pocket some cash.

 

Case surely not closed.

Then modern music as we know it is scewed. Case closed.

No, not at all. Many of you really just don't understand how unusual this is (assuming it was unintentional).

Ugh..... do we really need ANOTHER one of these??? :dozey:

 

Shouldn't all the Satriani crap be in the same thread????

 

Sorry but i'm so sick of this going on an on and on......... not one of us can do shit!!!!

 

Not the Satriani fans nor a single coldplayer......... get over it already!!!!

 

Who else is sick of all this??? :inquisitive:

 

*raiseshand*

well legally the melody has to match note for note 8-9 notes in a row to be considered plagerism. Can you transpose both melodies and tell me that both melodies match note for note through the entire progression? Cause I hear it breaking off quite a few times....

It's not exact. In some parts there are actually extra notes, however the basic skeleton of the melody is so close (both rhythmically and melodically) without any flourishes or ornamentation. if the chord progression under it was much different, I'd say this becomes a whole lot more subjective. The combination is the real killer here.

Classic. That would be funny. Sorry to disappoint you.

 

:uhoh: Why are you laughing? :confused:

Here's an interesting article:

 

 

Coldplay and Satriani: Similar features, but that's all

 

> Posted by Sean Piccoli on December 10, 2008 at 6:48 PM

Even if guitarist Joe Satriani has a dead-to-rights claim against Coldplay, he should drop it and get on with making music. His point is well-taken about the similarities between his 2004 song, If I Could Fly, and Coldplay's current, globe-trotting hit, Viva La Vida. Leave Coldplay to explain the likeness and let listeners decide whether it even matters.

 

The lawsuit that Satriani filed last week only fouls the air and makes musicians in general second-guess themselves. The current copyright regime already produces enough fear, intimidation and silencing of artistry.

 

That Satriani is the smaller, slighted party (David) and big bad, Grammy-nominated Coldplay (Goliath) has enough money to hire whole law firms isn't the point. The issue is why punish copying and its kin - borrowing, quotation, imitation, repetition, fair use and creative license - in music-making.

 

It might seem like a paradox, but copying is crucial to music's diversity. Somebody takes a fragment of an existing song, adapts it and extends it, and in the process creates something new, which in turn becomes a starting point for another innovation. African chants begat American slave songs which begat blues which begat jazz and rock. Gospel begat soul which begat funk which begat hip-hop.

 

Now, one could argue that Coldplay did nothing to advance music by duplicating (innocently or not) features of a four-year-old Satriani track. That's the shortsighted view. Picking two songs in isolation and litigating their resemblances only serves the interests of lawyers and copyright holders.

 

It also discourages creation based on copying and turns music appreciation into a game of gotcha. So what if Red Hot Chili Peppers' Dani California sounds like Tom Petty's Mary Jane's Last Dance? I can name at least a dozen rock, pop and reggae songs that use a particular root/major fifth/minor sixth/major fourth turnaround chord progression. Does that make me a witness to a crime?

 

It's one thing if somebody knowingly steals a composition, records it first and reaps the benefits before the real author has had the chance to do the same. That's outright theft and it ought to be stopped, and the court system is set up to prove or disprove that kind of claim.

 

All Coldplay did was repeat a melody and a chord progression that already had been composed, recorded and in circulation for four years. It's possible Coldplay did so without realizing it. It's also possible they knew the Satriani song -- though they say they didn't -- and decided they were improving on the basic elements enough to call it their own composition.

 

That should be allowed without the threat of litigation. It's not the job of a songwriter to police his own work for legally actionable similarities to someone else's -- indeed, the whole legal apparatus that exists to scare songwriters away from repetition is fundamentally flawed.

 

And this culture is far too consumed with the thought that somebody is stealing something from me - my song, my screenplay, my business plan, my spouse, whatever - and is making a fortune off of me and having the good life that should have been mine. Give it a rest.

 

http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/features/arts/music/blog/2008/12/coldplay_v_satriani_similar_fe.html

I've solved it!

 

 

Satriani preemptively plagiarized Coldplay... Duh :P

 

... I wonder if that will hold up in court :thinking:

When the numerical and desirable combinations are few, it's understandable that, whether intentional or not, those chord progressions will recur throughout time. Ownership or rights over so limited range of the possible combinations that actually sound good together seems like trying to own the common sounds made using the human voice box- because one person thinks they're the first. Why not credit the lyre or harp players of ancient Egypt then? Legally or not, looking at it from a common-sense moral perspective, it seems to me to be absurd to try and claim ownership over something like this. Unlike, say, a great painting - which has an incredibly large set of possible arrangements of colors, shapes, textures, layers, etc.- to lay claim to something so basic is in my mind at least like trying to lay an intellectual property claim to the shape of a perfect sphere of any given size. And I say this as both a fan of Deep Purple and of Coldplay. Personally, I could have raised some lawsuit over the intellectual property rights to the original keyboard sounds & components of Clocks, but I did not, and I will not. Why? Because it's ridiculous; it's so very simple, and unless the piece is used in a manner very close to the original & as a whole, it's just not the same. (And because I gave it away as a gift to the world, I simply wanted more people to enjoy music, and not get bogged down in the mud of ownership fights). Taking some chord progressions, riffs, or other snips, and then saying that's significant enough to claim ownership over a fragment of music, which can easily be assembled just by one's own dabblings and is in fact a common recurrence by all musical writers throughout time, is not being realistic about our nature, or the nature of music in general.

I would have to say that were we to look closely at almost any musical act, past or present, there would almost undoubtedly be similarities or patterns used that were either close to or the same as the original. So, even if Coldplay modeled a part of one song after another, it's been the same thing throughout history. The folk singers complained that the rock & rollers took their stuff, but then their stuff was often taken from older traditional folk singers, and on back to Aunt Sally in the hills of Carolina, etc. Aunt Sally might have lived from 1820 - 1880, and the original might have the same patterns as the latest version, but trying to go back and credit her is a bygone thing, and that's for a whole song! Taking so small a piece that can occur of natural human volition and claiming rights to it is simply like trying to own the color medium blue.

So you copied before? How interesting!

 

Case is not closed. You say that you made your conclusion based on working it out on paper but yet you did not need write it down to analyze. So why bother writing it down if you didn't need to? To prove you can type? Just because you based your determination off of your writing that will not be the case in court. The music business and the court will not rely on what one writes down on paper to determine the result. They are going to use and provide technology for the jurors to help settle this case because the jurors are not going to be the "expert" that you are. So, the case is open.

 

I think you misunderstand. When I say "work it out on paper," that's like giving someone a math problem and having them do complex operation without a calculator so you "work it out on paper." I worked out the math if you will so I could analyze it. Math is not subjective, it is absolute. Music is built around mathematical principles. I was just trying to determine the answer with regards to the chord progressions. It's not like I wrote an essay of my opinions. It's just musical math.

bjaiken spoke for me perfectly!! Except for the being bad for music part. This situation is so unique and uncommon that we aren't likely to be dealing with this kind of thing often.

That's what they said about section 13.1 of the Canadian Human rights act when they passed it. It basically deals with the illegality of hate speech overruling free speech. They said it's application was for very specific circumstances that would rarely if ever come up; that the laws murky nature would be made up for by the intelligence of judges. Now we have random extremist groups taking major magazines to court for calling them extreme. See? Or if you want the victim's very cutting and entertaining perspective: http://www.macleans.ca/canada/opinions/article.jsp?content=20080326_105422_105422

 

 

It's never enough to say oh, it won't matter it probably won't happen. Legal precedents can be twisted around to mean things that were never intended, and lawyers can be creative with them in ways that were never expected.

Dude as non-dickish you wish to sound, the Viva La Fraude banners are about as dickish as you can get. They'd be funny as hell on a Satch forum but here you're pretty well much pissing in the wind of public opinion.

I'll accept that.

 

Honestly, I thought your original post was well thought out and if this comes to a head....well shit, I'm not a lawyer but there are certainly 5 (maybe 6, I haven't listened closely enough)consecutive notes that are the same. If that constitues plagarism, well Coldplay are fucked and an out of court settlement is the best they can hope for. HOWEVER, they're both under the EMI banner and I'm fairly certain the board are most displeased with this turn of events and I wouldn't be entirely surprised that we hear little more of it.

 

I honestly think Chris didn't directly plagerise the melody, perhaps he was indirectly influenced by it, heard it in a elevator maybe and it popped up in his sub-concience a few days later or perhaps it was just pure chance. It's not a complex melody and it's more than possible it is just purely coincidental. Either way I hope it works out well, I've always been a fond admirer of Joe (hell I even own a Satriani signature Ibanez) but I hope this is swept under the rug and a the matter is dealt with privately. The public court is usually very brutal, ill-informed and unlikely to take any sort of factual evidence into consideration. Either way, it's hurting the public image of both parties.

Thanks for your thoughts. I agree.

It's never enough to say oh, it won't matter it probably won't happen. Legal precedents can be twisted around to mean things that were never intended, and lawyers can be creative with them in ways that were never expected.

 

That's what worries me. Unintended Consequences...