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7 Responses to “Joe Satriani accuses Coldplay of plagiarism”

1. Reader's Write Says:
   December 5th, 2008 at 11:56 am

   As much as I hate Coldplay, tsk-tsk Satch.

2. Actually... Says:
   December 5th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

   I was sort of surprised at this story (thinking that this was a little out of character for Joe), but I went and listened to the song in question. While I would guess that it is a coincidence (being a songwriter myself, I have some idea of the chances of coming up with something 100% original), Joe kind of has a point. The chorus of “Viva La Vida” does follow the guitar line in “If I could fly” very closely.

3. Henry Ermich Says:
   December 7th, 2008 at 12:42 am

   I just HAVE to pounce on this one, because it highlights a viewpoint which is really common, and also completely wrong.

   “I have some idea of the chances of coming up with something 100% original”.

   Let’s think about this seriously for a few moments.

   1. Every music genre has some general commonalities between the different artists creating it. That’s why (for instance) terms like “country music” or “rock” communicate something meaningful when you use them. Instrumentation, subject matter of songs, lyrical construction, type and sequence of chords, structure of melody lines, etc. are going to bear at least a “family resemblance” to one another.

   2. Take that out further to encompass “European music” or “african music” or “music from India” or “chinese music”, and you end up with a comparable situation: all “Western” music (based as it is on European/Greek ideas of how melody/harmony/instrumentation is supposed to work) is bound to share at least some level of commonality.

   3. People who create — songwriters, painters, inventors, software developers etc. — are influenced by other creations. As Lessig put it, “Creativity builds on the past”. Do we acknowledge this fact frequently enough? I don’t think so. Sure, you may get articles about musicians or bands where they discuss their “musical influences”, but this topic isn’t really mentioned that often, and tends to get ignored when we come to issues like this.

   A prime example of this is Bill Monroe, the so-called “Father” of Bluegrass music. Why do I say “So-called?” Well, quite simply, the music genre as it exists today (and especially the stuff from the “classic period” of the 1940s-50s) wouldn’t have sounded like it did without input from everybody from Earl Scruggs banjo playing to the Carter Family’s songs and playing style — both of which still cast a really large “shadow” on the current Bluegrass music scene.

   When Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs decided to leave Bill’s band and start doing their own thing, he got pissy and hostile about it. Same with the Osborne Brothers, and pretty much anybody else who he claimed was “stealing his sound.”

   He could brazenly claim it was “his” sound ONLY to the extent that he ignored the fact that these other artists had come out of roughly comparable musical background as him. Their “formative influences” were similar, so, it’s understandable that what they’d create would be broadly similar.

   Does this diminish what any of them did? I don’t think so. I don’t think it detracts from creativity or “talent” to acknowledge that other people might have similar ideas to ours.

   But in this culture especially, we’ve fetishized a mistaken view of “originality” which says that either it springs from your brow fully-formed and radically unrelated to anything else, or it’s just a “knockoff”. This is why people feel comfortable claiming that musicians “borrow” from one another or “steal” each other’s riffs or suchlike.

   In the area of patents, this mistaken view of ‘originality’ is dangerous as well. Who “invented” television? Philo T. Farnsworth? There were other researchers/tinkerers working in the same general direction, but our current patent system is based on the notion that whoever manages to score patent ‘protection’ is therefore entitled to monopoly power as a result.

   Does this mean that “originality” doesn’t exist? I honestly don’t know. I also don’t believe that “odds” have anything to do with how similar stuff you create happens to be to somebody else’s creations. I know for a fact that a lot of Bluegrass and country musiciains tend to favor particular chord progressions and types of melody lines. Does this mean that we should all start suing each other because we happened to have a roughly-comparable sequence of notes?

   When you come down to it, Satriani is just another big-name corporate music has-been running a “shakedown” on coldplay. The indicator that his creative well’s run dry? The fact that he has to resort to suing other people over frivolous shit like this. Did Tom Petty sue the Red Hot Chilli Peppers? After all, the chord-line and riff of “Dani California” was roughly similar to “Mary Jane’s last dance”. Tom Petty is still cool and worth listening to, because he didn’t act like a pompous, multi-millionaire has-been.

   If you still cling to the mistaken view of “originality” behind this lawsuit, let me suggest you summarily abandon using all:

   Chords, Melody-lines, sentence-structure, words, timing, currently-existing musical instruments, and recognizable subject-matter. After. And no, I’m not joking. Dr. Funkalicious Has-beenstein deserves to lose whatever remaining fan-base he has over this.

4. Gr8oldies Says:
   December 7th, 2008 at 10:37 am

   Quote: Yesterday he lodged court papers in Los Angeles claiming Coldplay’s Viva La Vida
   used, “substantial original portions” of his 2004 instrumental If I Could Fly,” says the BBC

   I can remember not so long ago that used to be called “Influance” not “plagiarism” but I digress.

5. Actually... Says:
   December 9th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

   Thank you, Henry Ermich, for your reply. It’s obvious that you have invested some thought in this topic.

   I mostly agree with your point of view. However, I feel that you have read too much into what I said. My statement was made somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I am essentially saying that there are only so many notes, and only so many combinations, and that they have all been used in some way at one time or another. I am not saying that unless an idea has never been heard on this planet before, it is no good. I fully understand that all of the music that I love has been influenced by those who came before.

   For the most part, I feel that this type of lawsuit is silly. As I stated, I feel that this instance is a coincidence. I am not claiming that Joe Satriani is right for suing Coldplay, just that the melody in question is almost identical. It is quite likely that Chris Martin has never heard the Satriani track.

   I do feel that there is a line where the use stops being a tribute, and starts being a note-for-note ripoff. I most certainly could not copy word-for-word the text of a book I liked and claim it as my own work. For instance, let’s just imagine that the guy from Coldplay loves that album by Satriani. Is he right to say “Oh, I like that bit. I think that would work as the chorus to this song”. My opinion is no. I’m not sure that it warrants a lawsuit, but it seems cheap to me, personally. Kind of like those songs that sample all of the instrumental sections of a song, but change all the words. Who really wrote that?

6. Coldplagiarism Says:
   December 14th, 2008 at 8:05 pm

   <p>No doubt Coldplagiarism happened here. Coldplay’s arrogance will bite them in the ass. Any real musician can see how extremely close both the melody and the chord progression are. While it is true that you can’t copyright a chord progression, the work in question becomes all the more suspect when you add a virtually identical melody on top of a chord sequence that is almost exactly the same as well. Furthermore, even if you give Coldplay the benefit of the doubt that this was unintentional, it doesn’t matter. Satriani still owns the copyright to the intellectual property that was employed in Viva La Vida. Ignorance is not an excuse. If Coldplay is smart, they will try to settle this out of court. </p>

7. masterofpuppets Says:
   December 24th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

   henry,
   you have a complete misconception and prejudice in your words, i wont take long with my reply but you have to remember that theres a LAW that prevents music to be stolen and taking profits out of it. not only you have no idea what you are talking about, but you also say nonsense like:
   1. “crativity wells run dry”??? the guy made a record this year and gave a world tour (2008). what more do you want?
   2. “Did Tom Petty sue the Red Hot Chilli Peppers? After all, the chord-line and riff of “Dani California” was roughly similar to “Mary Jane’s last dance””?? naming examples? these two songs are not roughly similar, they are way too similar man. And you cant also say that petty worths listening to and not some other guy for millonaire, non cool, etc (satriani). who the fuck are you to say what should people listen or what not?
   3. now patents, theres a legislation about it made which is very simple… “the one who says `this is mine´earlier gets all profits for his/her creation” there it ends.. i particularly dont like such a law in a subject like music, but its an active law. fullstop.

   Now, as a guy who studies music, i can say that for creating things you have to use some things created before… but we just cannot use this argument to defend coldplay. melody and armony are shared in these two pieces of music. the rithm is in 4/4 and played in an square way in both songs (bassdrum-snaredrum-bass-snare… in coldplay´s one they just use a bell instead of snaredrums). But the main thing that tells people this is a plagiarism is pretty simple.. is the EAR. everybody that know these two songs can sing one and start singing the other one in any moment cause they just fit.

   i ask you please to read again what you have written because you are just making a fool of yourself, take care

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