Coldplay May Get Served Lawsuit At Grammys

Coldplay may get served legal papers at this weekend's Grammy Awards.

Last year guitarist Joe Satriani alleged that Coldplay's "Viva La Vida" borrowed a little too heavily from his "I Just Wanna Fly." Satriani's lawyer Howard King is planning to blanket the Grammys with servers to hand the band a plagiarism lawsuit.

Fox News reports:

King says, "We have warned their British lawyers that we have hired a fleet of process servers lined up to dog the band everywhere they go this weekend in the hopes of serving them."

King even promises to have camera crews roaming around with the process servers to get the whole thing on tape.

Coldplay denies the charges.

Read about Satriani's complaint here.

Hear a song comparison:

Comments

[ChiGuy]

Every time I hear Coldplay, I want to jump out a window.
Adequate lyrics applied to bland music, sung by a below average voice = Blech.

[mooklyn]

Funny- I would say awful lyrics applied to adequate music- I could stomach it until I heard out how vacuous the sentiments in the lyrics are.

But we agree on one thing: Blech!

[NoPCZone]

Satriani is going to get a big payday when this hits court. It's obvious that by intent or not, the song is a rip off of his work.

[lawguy]

Don't be so sure. That chord progression has been used by numerous musicians over the years, as this vid demonstrates: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fxSIAXGakuk&feature=channel_page

[BRE]

amen

[firelord5000]

CP sucks, and this lawyer is a publicity-stunt tool.

[cityprof]

Back in the day, classic composers copied wholesale from others. I would call it referencing. :))

[iamsmart]

Coldplay also copied from U2

[jweider]

I know which song you mean. I always thought it sounded like REM "Man on the Moon" myself.

[Hirnlego]

And Depeche mode - Strangelove
..but Coldplay also made a homage to DM with one of their videos..

[mahdeealoo]

And if you look deep enough, you may find that Joe Satriani kifed some of his riffs too. I would consider it a compliment if it is close and not exact, as this is, and get on with your life. Quit being greedy.

[milo h minderbinder]

That youtube example is horrible, playing a ton of the intro and then cutting off the vocal melody after five or six notes?

I hear some similarity (heard a better comparison elsewhere), but it's impossible to make a comparison from that video. Is there a better one?

[Venice]

Because songs in Western music mostly share the same underlying notes and chords, the copyright law allows there to be up to seven notes in a row that are the same. And that is how many are similar here. So there is no case.

The person posting on 2/4/09 at 11:21 shows how many other songs have this same boring melody, all of which came before both Coldplay and Satriani. (Satriani even uses the same guitar sound as another song that sounds the same.) Mainly, I think they should all look elsewhere for inspiration and not emphasize their bad melody writing. Coldplay at least has an engaging arrangement.

[milo h minderbinder]

Copyright law doesn't spell out any number of notes, or amount of time that can be the same, it is just general guidelines and cases are decided by court and jury.

If there is a mention of "seven notes" in copyright law, prove me wrong and link the specific law.

[plargo]

Yawn.

There are lots of annoying musicla coincidences out there, and this is one of them.

Like, say, the riff from Nirvana's COME AS YOU ARE sounding a lot like Killing Joke's 80'S.

etc

etc

etc

Nothing to see here.

Next.

[tam39]

OK. First of all, anyone who thinks Coldplay is not a great band is not very wise. They are popular yes, but also very talented. Why don't you people actually listen to their albums, and then meaningfully criticize their music? Second, that "borrowed" phrase in the music is one small part of the song. The chorus is unique, and so is the song as a whole, including the rhythm. As for people saying Coldplay is just a branching off of U2 and Radiohead.­.. ummm that's how music works. It evolves. The Talking Heads in many ways had significant influence on U2 and Radiohead. Bottom line is that Coldplay is it's own talented band, that also happens to be popular.

[gifu]

Har-dee-ha­r-har!!!!!­! What a litmus test!!

[milo h minderbinder]

Coldplay is not a great band.

There, I said it.

[PeaceCzar]

THANK YOU FOR SPEAKING TRUTH.

[tam39]

OK ok maybe I'm a bit biased. I think they are a great band, but can't we agree they are a good band? Haha probably you chumps won't agree. But then again, Bruce Springsteen recommended that Coldplay play at the next Superbowl, and he knows a thing or two about music...

[Propagandhi]

Unique music usually doesn't have so much repetition.

[tam39]

Haha well then I guess Coldplay is uniquely unique.

[IndependentMeans]

To all those Coldplay is a terrible band: that you all should produce and sell the music they do. Bottom line, Viva la Vida is a masterpiece, with amazing lyrics. I personally love it, and they have had many great songs. To diss the band is rude, your right to not like them, but that doesn't mean you have taste.

[Kenji]

Is English your first language?

[jweider]

Just because they sell a lot of albums does not mean they are a great band. 62 million morons voted for bush in 2004, doesn't mean he was a great president.

[NoSillyName]

Chris, is that you? Or maybe its Gwynneth, out of the loo?

[mcearlgrey]

You can't copyright boring.

[jweider]

coldplay can

[jweider]

I noticed that the article doesn't mention that Coldplay has been nominated for a Grammy for the song Viva la Vida. It would be a shame if they one for a song the plagiarized.

[newdreams]

THAT would make the grammies worth watching.

[fcsakes]

They sound exactly the same to me, but then all "popular" music sounds the same to me. Don't musicians have imagination any more?

[publanski]

Perhaps the problem is your ability to discriminate between different sounds. You might want to have that checked. These songs do sound alike, but to claim that all "popular" music sounds the same is pretty silly.