Joe Satriani Comments on Copyright Lawsuit With Coldplay
Dec 7th, 2008 by Guitar MX Admin
Legendary soloist and Chickenfoot guitarist Joe Satriani recently commented on his copyright lawsuit with Coldplay. From the papers filed on December 4, 2008, Satriani claims that the Grammy nominated Coldplay song “Viva La Vida” uses “substantial original portions” of his song “If I Could Fly” and is seeking any and all profits from the song.
“If I Could Fly” has significant meaning to Satriani. It took him 10 years to write the song, and is a love letter to this wife.
That’s what really hurts about this whole thing. That I spent so long writing the song, thinking about it, loving it, nursing it, and then finally recording it and standing on stages the world over playing it – and then somebody comes along and plays the exact same song and calls it their own – Joe Satriani
Check out the similarities in this video and make your own conclusion about Joe’s claims.
You can read more about Satriani’s copyright lawsuit against Coldplay here.
I believe they could both have easily come up with that short chord progression seperately.
Coldplay’s version goes into a chorus, and a bridge later on, and I don’t know what Joe’s does.
I think we’ll find that Coldplay is innocent, and it is simply a nice chord progression. And the melody that Joe plays is a little different from that short clip.
Take both the whole songs in context and then make a judgement.
We are in a world where it is becoming more difficult to come up with unique music.
I think we’ll see more and more of this problem as time goes on, there are only 12 notes to choose from after all.
“there are only 12 notes to choose from after all” …
Well, there are only 21 letters in our alphabet, but no one is trying to rewrite “War and Piece” and call it his own.
It is tryue that it’s getting difficult to create something completely unique, and chances are that Coldplay didn’t want to cheat. Perhaps the melody was there in their heads without knowing where did it come from… but Satriani has all the right to sue and win the case. No doubt.
[...] won’t rehash the details, you can find those here, here, here, here, here, here or [...]
[...] won’t rehash the details, you can find those here, here, here, here, here, here or [...]
[...] Joe Satriani Comments on Copyright Lawsuit With Coldplay Joe Satriani filed a lawsuit against Coldplay in 2008, claiming their popular song “Viva La Vida” is a rip off of his song “If I Could Fly” [...]
[...] may remember the story of Joe Satriani suing Coldplay for copyright infringement with their song “Viva La Vida”. The song bears a striking resemblance to Joe’s [...]