Coldplay sued by Satch

I seen this before on the Petrucci boards too!

It makes me laugh because the first time I heard that Coldplay tune, I thought to myself “I’ve heard this tune somewhere before I’m sure”, then I realised it was indeed a rip off of If I could fly.

I’m not sure if it was intentional personally, as someone said on the petrucci boards I just couldn’t imagine Coldplay listening to satriani and digging him 😀

I think this is just one of those crazy coincidences

@billmeedog 5789 wrote:

Hey Rick,

OH NO! Your beloved Coldplay is in a bit of a tight spot! Yikes! 😮 😎

I will say that you (Rick) did NOT have a high opinion of this track when it came out. I remember you saying as much (even though you apparently love most of their music!)

Oh well, stuff happens! Who knows if it was intentional. I surely don’t know!

It serves them both for treading in the hackneyed terriotory known as:

||: I | vim | IV | V :||

then displace it by two-bars and you get:

||: IV | V | I | vim :||

However, Harmony CANNOT be copywritten anyways, just melodies “relative” to a known progression (I think?!?) My point is that those way overused diatonic progressions
have probability of unintentional duplication WORKING AGAINST them! Can you see what I mean??? :rolleyes:

~Bill Meehan~ 😀

everyone can see it might have been unintentional duplicate
BUT, the chord progression, the melody, and even the madaf***ing (lol sry) tempo –
are at exact sync..
I can’t find a way to explain that..

and honestly, I’ve heard about this “duplicated” song, already when viva la vida first came out as a single..
but I never thought Satch will sue them..
(and if he was going to from the start, why did he go through with it just today?) *sry for bad english stuff lol*

@arc_of_descent 5791 wrote:

This seems to me like a publicity stunt. You know the saying – “there is no such thing as bad publicity”. It seems Joe Satriani has got himself stuck in some huge media deals! 😀

Hey Rohan, 🙂

Wow! Good point! I hadn’t thought of that possibility, but you are right about publicity in general. Who knows if Satch (maybe his management or PR firm!) was intentinally seeking publicity?!? :rolleyes:

This story will be interesting to follow-up on! 😉

~Bill Meehan~ 😀

@Rick Graham 5798 wrote:

Do bear in mind tho that whoverer made the ‘mashup’ vid sped up and changed the key of the satch vid.

Really? I didn’t know that. I had never heard this Satch song before. If that’s the case then I don’t see how Satch has a case, or at least a strong case. Yeah there are melodic similarities, but there are melodic differences too. I’m actually pretty surprised that Joe would decide to do this. He specifically wants it to go to court with a jury trial too. He must be really confident. I’m not convinced at all though unless he has something up his sleeve that we don’t know about.

Ultimately, if CP did steal the idea, then I hope it somehow comes forth and they make up for it to Joe. But on the other hand, if CP didn’t steal from Joe’s music, I hope Joe can settle down and realize that coincidences happen sometimes.

Each and every one of us has played this chord progression before… and the melody doesn´t sound very original to me… besides, only the beginning is exactly the same. I think it´s really “not cool” to sue Coldplay for that. Thumbs down!

@Rick Graham 5798 wrote:

Yeah, I saw that ‘mashup’ vid back whn it first came out but didn’t think at all that Satch would go for the jugular.
Do bear in mind tho that whoverer made the ‘mashup’ vid sped up and changed the key of the satch vid.

Hey Rick, 🙂

Yes, I heard that the vid-mashup was edited for pitch and speed, but I don’t think that will factor into the legal judgement. I’m NOT sure about this, but I think that the legal copyright/ownership has to do with the “relative” nature of the melody against it’s accompaniment (even though the harmony itself is NOT protected.) That’s why I used the “relative” description of the progression in roman-numerals ( IV_V_I_vim.) However, like you, I AM a bit surprised that Satch would “go for the jugular.” Like Rohan mentioned, maybe his mangement/PR firm saw this as a “publicity-op.” :rolleyes:

Just curious Rick, do YOU think that the song’s key and tempo will legally factor in? (Not so much your opinion on whether it should, but rather will it factor in legally?) :confused:

This should be interesting! 😉

~Bill Meehan~ 😀

@RoEm 5807 wrote:

I think it will ^ (although you didn’t ask me XD)

There are tones of cases like these that you can find if you’d just look for them..
The fact that the pitch isn’t the same already gives CP a bit of credit
cause it might came out unintentionally as we mentioned before…
therefore, at least legally, I don’t think it will factor in.

RoEm, 🙂

But if the Tempo & Key DO NOT factor in legally, that technically will probably work against Coldplay, because that would mean that Coldplay being in a different key won’t matter?!? I think that the key and tempo SHOUDN’T matter, simply because if key & tempo protected the copyright infringer, then ANYONE could just take hit songs and change their keys & tempos, correct?!? :confused:

This should be interesting!!! I have NO IDEA how this will go?!?!?!? :rolleyes:

In Coldplay’s defense, with a band like their’s, it just doesn’t seem like Joe Satriani would be any tempting source of pop melodies (with all due respect to Satch who I think is brilliant with his melodies!) Ya know, I could see U2 or Elton John or something, but Satch? This whole thing seems weird to me! 😮

Has anyone considered the role of the PRODUCER in this? I know that the owner of the copyright is probably legally responsible, but is there a possibility that Coldplay’s producer brought in this melody idea that they collaborated on and arranged in their own way?!? I could see that scenario, possibly?!? :confused:

~Bill Meehan~ 😀