Coldplay Fires Back Against Lawsuit

NEW YORK — Coldplay has fired back against accusations they copied another artist's work for their hit "Viva La Vida."

In a statement released on Tuesday, the band responded to a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by guitarist Joe Satriani last week in federal court in Los Angeles. That lawsuit says the Grammy-nominated song contains "substantial, original portions" of his 2004 song, "If I Could Fly."

"With the greatest possible respect to Joe Satriani, we have now unfortunately found it necessary to respond publicly to his allegations," read the statement. "If there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental, and just as surprising to us as to him. Joe Satriani is a great musician, but he did not write the song 'Viva La Vida.' We respectfully ask him to accept our assurances of this and wish him well with all future endeavours."

Satriani, 52, wants a federal judge to order an accounting so he can determine how much money he may be owed, or else stop using the song.

In response to Coldplay's statement, Satriani's lawyer, Howard E. King, said Coldplay's public reaction was dramatically different from how the guitarist's claims were treated before the lawsuit was filed.

"We attempted to have a dialogue on this before we went public," King said. "We felt almost forced to file suit."

"As far as the 'coincidence,' ultimately that's for a jury to decide," he added.

King said it's common for musicians to be influenced by other works and incorporate it into their own, sometimes a little too closely. But he said that the reaction is usually different when the similarities are pointed out.

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"It doesn't mean you don't owe something to the original composer," he said.

Coldplay is one of the world's top-selling pop acts, and their latest CD, "Viva La Vida," has sold nearly 2 million copies in the United States alone. It was nominated last week for seven Grammys, including album of the year and record of the year for the title track.

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Editors: Entertaiment Writer Anthony McCartney in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

http://www.coldplay.com

http://www.joesatriani.com

Comments

[WilliamProc]

Coldplay is cold busted. Maybe they forgot that they had heard the tune beforehand. The similarities are just too many.

Primus said it best in "Year of The Parrot"

PLAGURISM , PLAGURISM!

[lucifersmile]

It's too bad nobody knows who Doves are. At least when they lift bits they give credit on the album. Same for Super Furry Animals. But those 2 bands have integrity.

[spitar1]

Sorry to you who are "giving the benefit of doubt". This is not a mere similarity. It's outright plagarism. Not one note veers and as evidenced the tempo, chord structure and melody are identical. If you can overlap the songs as shown on youtube and not tell they are overlapped that is more than random coincidence. They took this from Satriani. Whether you like either artist or not, Coldplay should be busting out the checkbook on this one.

[newdreams]

I agree. I'd like to see the statistical odds of Coldplay's melody randomly matching exactly Satriani's riff. there's just too much of it there and it's exact - can't be coincidence. If Satriani gets a jury trial, Coldplay is toast.

[mightyninth]

Next time you're stuck listening to Pachelbel's D major canon, amuse yourself by singing along with the words to Jolly Old St. Nicholas.

[twohearts]

You know, Satriani is NOT an outdated whatever insult you care to use. He plays a style that was awesome & very creative in the early 80's. I haven't listened to his recent albums, BUT - Coldplay is a silly band in SO many ways.
Whether it was taken unconsciously or not, they SHOULD pay Satriani something. They can afford it- as Harrison could when he settled his suit over "He's so fine."
If it makes any difference, I'm a musician w/ 45 years of experience.

[lushious llama]

Everyone keeps mentioning the George Harrison "He's So Fine" lawsuit. That was a revenge lawsuit generated and filed against Harrison by his former manager Allen Kline of ABKCO. You know that name on the back of the original "Let It Be" album "Apple Records, an ABKCO company"?

Allen Kline was the same guy that ripped off the Rolling Stones. Allen Kline was the same guy that took 100% of the royalties from "Bittersweet Symphony". This guy was a pirate in the music industry. Look him up in Wikipedia. He started out claiming to get musicians more money from their record companies and in all honesty he did do that because the record companies were incredibly corrupt and did not pay the artists fairly. So some kudos must go to him for that, but he was a bit of a bad guy as well. He did take advantage of the artists he represented. He owns the Rolling Stones up to 1971. That's what kind of pirate he is.

So when the Beatles realized the kinds of backroom, against their interests dealings Allen Kline tried to do, the Beatles fired him. In order to exact revenge Allen Kline specifically went out and bought the rights to the song "He's So Fine" in order to get revenge against Harrison and make at least one of his former client's life miserable. The He's So Fine law suit is garbage and the Judge who decided it was seriously wrong. Bad law.

[JGatsby]

Thanks for that bit of background, never knew that. Its interesting to compare the Harrison case to this one. I never thought the Harrison case had much merit. Its true there are one or maybe two bars of "She's so fine" that sound similar to the riff on My Sweet Lord but IMHO its nothing like the nearly identical sound between these two songs. You could never map My Sweet Lord to She's So Fine the way someone on Youtube did with the Satriani and Coldplay songs. BTW, I also find all the Coldplay sucks or Satriani sucks (or is great) kind of pointless. Plagiarism is Plagiarism it doesn't matter if what you are stealing is mediocre.

[Palemoon]

All I can do is take them at their word and give them the benefit of the doubt. But I agree with most other posters, the case seems pretty cut and dry and melody is exactly the same. I can understand coincidental spots here and there, but the entire melody of the song, the basis of the song itself, the part people hum and drives them crazy, that is identical in both instances.

On another note, it's a shame that Muse doesnt' get the publicity in the US as Coldplay does. Muse is a truely outstanding rock band.

[soonerdru]

Or how about the band James? They've been belting out incredible songs for years now.

[Palemoon]

Good question, lol. I remember that song "Laid" they did that I really liked alot. But I hadn't heard much of them since. Shame, but I'll have to check them out now that you've let me know that they are still around.

And speaking of still around. I was stunned to find out that I hadn't heard about the reunion of 2 of my favorite singers of the 80's who both had top 10 smash hits here. But they got together a few years ago to do a tour together, as well as a very cool song and video. None other than Nena and Kim Wilde, lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxze2ywawJ0

I love the song. :o)

[piul05]

I think - but I'm really not sure -that it used to be the case that they would consider a charge of plagiarism when there were eight sequential accords similar to those rom the original song, and when it could be proved that the musician being sued had access to it.

As I mentioned before, in a topic relating to this lawsuit, a little well-known case is that of Rod Stewart and his song "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy" that he plagiarized from the brazilian musician Jorge Ben Jor (his song is called "Taj Mahal").

Not only was Stewart's song obviously similar, but it was also written at a time he spent a lot of time in Brazil - so, it was a fairly straightforward case of plagiarism.

[Palemoon]

I didn't know that about Rod Stewart, lol. And I don't know all the legal definitions behind the laws and such, so that's enlightening.

[freedomisabsolute]

They are not the same song. They are remarkably similar. Coldplay does what they do. Some of their songs I am quite fond of. I am not going to defend or degrade them. I don't think I should be charged to view a painting or listen to a song. If to people painted the same face and it came out almost identical, who cares. Who is the better musician may be provable may just be speculative opinion. But him suing is all about ego, if it was actually about art who cares if someone copies your song. Does it diminish you as a person? No but it turns your ego into the victim of plagiarism. And then more egos can come here and dispense their opinions and disgust. We need to stop distracting ourselves with this fluff. It's fine to read about it but do we really need to feel so strongly about something that doesn't concern us. Art should be about art, not the profiting of, and that is why people complain about the state of music today because it isn't about the art anymore. Once people write just to write and sing just to sing without expecting adulation and elevation above the rest of us then it will be pure and beautiful again instead of people spewing ugly things in the blogosphere. Time to evolve past our egos people. We already have enough, stop wanting more it's why we're in the mess we're in now.

[Bettysdad]

Songs are written and recorded for profit, and they are copywrited.

You know about copywrite laws?

It's called the "music business."

[mrgenius99]

It's called "copyrighted". Just thought you should know.

[Temsi]

If you painted something, and then someone else painted another painting that looked almost identical to yours, and then claimed his was totally original and refused to give you credit for your work, wouldn't you feel slighted? What if that person then sold their copy of your painting and refused to share the profits with you, even though their painting only looked the way it did because you painted yours?
This isn't about ego. This is about fairness.
Jebus, dude, get a clue.

[lushious llama]

Actually I think this is more like: You painted the Brooklyn Bridge and no one cared about your painting. Then someone else painted the Brooklyn Bridge (and never saw your painting) but they happened to look very, very similar and this second person made a lot of money off of their painting. Now you saw that popular painting and said "I want some money". That is not copyright infringement. Those are two independent works generated from the same natural (or man-made) surroundings. They happen to look similar because there are similarities. Why is this obvious in photographic art, painting, etc., and not in music?

[trollsbwild]

It has been twenty eight years since John Lennon was killed, it makes me realize how bad the music industry has become. Sorry, but Chris Martin is a lightweight in terms of talent.

[dnddays]

I love how they never deny it. I'm sure it was unintentional, but that excuse didn't help George Harrison and it won't help them.

[Dewtrell]

This seems to be a problem with many Brit bands... have you ever heard of the out right plagirism by Led Zepplin?

There's no way for Cold Play to arm a defense, it is clearly the same song. And, there's another band, can't remember the name but the arrangement of the lyrics is the same as this band, who claimed they played at an industry party attended by Chris Martin and another Cold Play band member.

[Lauren Cahn - Huffpost Blogger]

The songs sound nearly identical, and if you play them at the same time, they make a perfect duet of ...the SAME song. Please don't tell my kids I wrote this. They LOVE Viva La Vida. But it is just wrong to copy someone else's work.

[dnddays]

To be fair, it happens all the time, especially in publishing. It's almost certainly accidental, like the slush pile editor who reads so many unsolicited manuscripts he's never sure of whether his novel is incorporating someone else's work. But when you do something like this, just apologize, negotiate a settlement and move on.

Anyway, I'll save my contempt for the real plagiarist, Avril Lavigne. She does it deliberately and has done it more than once.

[Jazmo]

This is one of the worst examples of musical plagiarism I've ever heard!!! Coldplay shouldn not have been arrogant Brit musicians and should have taken the opening dialogue more seriously. That would be a truly "remarkable" coincidence and I can't imagine any jury wouldn't hear the similarities.

[avenue]

Radiohead better win the Grammy for album of the year.

[GeeCan]

From your blog to the jurors' eyes. The comparison between Radiohead's album and Coldplay's Album is that "In Rainbows" would be like Beethoven's 9th while "Viva La Vida" would be akin to Milly Vanilly's "Girl You Know It's True."

[lushious llama]

What about those Creaky Boards, "The Song I Didn't Write". It's pretty much identical to the Satriani Chorus and the Coldplay Viva La Vida. It's a rudimentary chord pattern and sounds amateurish. To be honest, I'd bet there were a lot of other songs out there that sound pretty much the same. All you have to find is one out of copyright and that's it. Go classical, there's got to be some twit from the 1700's that crapped out those 4 chords with similar pissy melody.

I think Satriani is a washed up douch bag for trying to grab some money from Coldplay over this. There is no way that they ripped Satriani off, and even if they did so effin' what if they did. He should be proud that he influenced someone. Satriani knows he's full of crap.

BTW the whole "My Sweet Lord" v. "He's So Fine" thing was revenge for The Beatles firing Alan B (is for ballsucker) Kline Company - ABKCO to you.

[RoloTomassi]

" think Satriani is a washed up douch bag for trying to grab some money from Coldplay over this."

That just goes to show the quality of what you have to think with; Satriani is a master, and if he made the claim, he did so with the knowledge that thecomparative facts of the music were in his favor.

I saw Satriani live last month, and he is anything but washed up; Coldplay will be lucky if they can sustain a career as creative and lengthy as Satraini's.

In the menatime, they should probably put forth a little effort in learning how to write music without ripping other off in the process.

[mouselion]

An artist can be astoundingly good and still not be great. While certainly meticulous, Satriani's music is too predictable and I really don't care for that 80's guitar sound -- which is all that he has. Coldplay, on the other hand, are a simply high tech, slightly more sophisticated version of Back Street Boyz.

So you can take both of them, throw in some Britney Spears, and it still wouldn't make it close to the radar screen of Great.

[mouselion]

George Harrison admitted that it was the same melody, note-for-note and settled.

[newdreams]

It very well could be that Coldplay's money they 'earned' from this album is connected to Satriani's property & in fact is his money.

Why would Coldplay even go to the trouble of releasing portions of a lifted song and spend all the time and money touring it? Nobody can deny the similarities. Sounds like the exact same song to me.

[geobushono]

coldplay seems to regularly find themselves in this situation. hmmmmm