Joe Satriani sues Coldplay for plagiarism

Coldplay has been sued by rock guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani, who accused the English group of plagiarizing one of his songs. According to Reuters, Satriani filed a copyright infringement suit in Los Angeles on Thursday (December 4th), alleging that the Coldplay song "Viva La Vida" makes use of "substantial original portions" of his 2004 instrumental "If I Could Fly." Satriani is seeking a jury trial, damages and "any and all profits" attributable to the alleged copyright infringement.

"Viva La Vida," the title track from Coldplay's latest smash album, was nominated for Grammy awards for record and song of the year last Wednesday (December 3rd). The group is up for a total of seven awards.

The Satriani track comes off his album Is There Love In Space?. There was no immediate comment from either the Coldplay camp or Satriani's attorney regarding the lawsuit.

A comparison of the two tracks, first playing each separately and then laying them over each other, has surfaced online at YouTube and other outlets. The link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ofFw9DKu_I.

In another YouTube video, a guitar teacher in Canada does an extensive anaylsis of the music theory behind each song. It's about 9 minutes long and kind of technical, but may be of interest to guitar players and music students. The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEGGFJLpbu4.