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Nubnut
Joined: 07 Jun 2008
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Location: Denver, CO
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 Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 4:52 am Post subject: |
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http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/joe-satriani-speaks-about-coldplay-lawsuit-185914
Joe Satriani speaks about Coldplay lawsuit
A MusicRadar exclusive interview
Joe Bosso, Sun 7 Dec 2008, 9:58 pm UTC
Joe Satriani speaks exclusively to MusicRadar about suing Coldplay
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As previously reported on MusicRadar, Joe Satriani is suing Coldplay, claiming the UK band's Grammy-nominated song Viva La Vida uses one of his melodies.
In court papers filed on 4 December 2008, Satriani's legal team alleges Viva La Vida, the title track of Coldplay's current album, copies "substantial original portions" of his song If I Could Fly.
Satriani's song was included on his 2004 album Is There Love In Space?
Speaking exclusively to MusicRadar on 6 December, Joe Satriani recalls the exact emotion he felt when he first heard Coldplay's Viva La Vida.
"The second I heard, I knew..."
"I felt like a dagger went right through my heart. It hurt so much," Satriani says. "The second I heard it, I knew it was [my own] If I Could Fly."
As it turned out, Satriani wasn't the only one who noticed the similarity between If I Could Fly and Viva La Vida.
"Almost immediately, from the minute their song came out, my e-mail box flooded with people going, 'Have you heard this song by Coldplay? They ripped you off man.' I mean, I couldn't tell you how many e-mails I received.
"Everybody noticed the similarities between the songs. It's pretty obvious." Joe Satriani
"Everybody noticed the similarities between the songs. It's pretty obvious. It's as simple as that - when you listen to a song and you say, 'Wow, that's a real rip-off.'"
What makes the situation especially painful for Satriani is that If I Could Fly isn't just any song. It's a composition he'd been laboring over for well over 10 years before he recorded it.
"I started writing it on the Flying In A Blue Dream tour back in 1990. But because of the way I write, sometimes songs take a while, as this one did. In 2003 I started demoing it in earnest. I played it on the acoustic guitar on a demo so I could sing the melody, then I demoed it on electric to get the sound. And the performance turned out to be so spontaneous, so right and so emotional, that it wound up being a keeper."
Joe Satriani is suing Coldplay, alleging Viva La Vida uses his melody from If I Could Fly
Satriani feels "really hurt"
Since If I Could Fly came out in 2004, Satriani has been gratified by the reaction it's received from his fans, many of whom have called it one of his most captivating songs.
"That was the intent all along," he says. "It was a love letter to my wife, Rubina – a simple, direct expression of feeling.
"That's what really hurts about this whole thing. That I spent so long writing the song, thinking about it, loving it, nursing it, and then finally recording it and standing on stages the world over playing it - and then somebody comes along and plays the exact same song and calls it their own."
"Coldplay didn't want to talk about it. They just wanted this whole thing to go away." Joe Satriani
Since it was announced on 4 December 2008 that Satriani is suing Coldplay for alleged plagiarism, seeking a jury trial and "any and all profits" connected to Viva La Vida, his life has been turned upside down.
"This has been the weirdest thing I've ever been involved in," he says. "The media attention has been bizarre and surreal. I really can't explain how I've felt over the past day or two."
"I did everything I could to avoid a court case"
Satriani stresses that his motives are ruled by artistic purity and an overriding sense of right and wrong.
"Everybody's assumes I'm trying to go after these guys in Coldplay, as if I'm doing this with malice," he says "That's the furthest thing from my mind. I'm just doing what I need to do as an artist, to protect what's mine, to protect those feelings I put down in song.
"I did everything I could to avoid a court case with this situation. But Coldplay didn't want to talk about it. They just wanted this whole thing to go away. Maybe they figured this little guitar player guy will leave them alone after a while, I don't know.
"But we're talking about a piece of art that I created, and that's something I feel is important. I think everybody should feel that way."
And now, Satriani's team will ask a jury to decide.
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Drevenant 
Joined: 23 Aug 2007
Posts: 562
Location: Foley, AL
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:50 am Post subject: |
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| Nubnut wrote: | | "Coldplay didn't want to talk about it. They just wanted this whole thing to go away." |
I find this line particularly immature of him to say. Coldplay doesn't say anything immediately. So he assumes they're blowing it off?
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SeaMoney
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Posts: 750
Location: East Lansing, MI
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:57 am Post subject: |
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I don't wish to come off as a jerk for saying this, but Satriani seems to be acting very over-dramatic about the whole situation.
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Confrontational
Joined: 15 Aug 2007
Posts: 1131
Location: A floating rock out in the Pacific
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:45 am Post subject: |
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| Sottle wrote: | | Have you guys not noticed that the people not supporting this lawsuit are mostly providing reasoned explanations as to why it's ridiculous and the people who are are just mostly repeating "yeah, they sound the same" and "Coldplay suck!" over and over again? |
Do I even exist?
HELLO OUT THERE! CAN YOU PEOPLE READ WHAT I AM SAYING? AM I EVEN HERE?!?!
Just curious.
| Quote: | One more stab at proving this is a coincidence. A lot of things annoy me, but the average person assuming that a coincidence is the least likely explanation for things instead of in most cases, the most, is pretty much top of the list. If i convince one person, then i consider it a victory.
Earlier on this year, a performer called Derren Brown, who's reasonably big news in the UK, not so much in US, did a TV special where he claimed he had a foolproof system for betting on horses. I don't know why, maybe he's just as annoyed by this as i am. The show followed one woman who had got an anonymous e-mail tip, all the way through 6 bets on 6 horse races, winning every time, to the big final pay-off where Derren revealed how it was done, and this is how.
At the start, he contacted 7,776 people and split them into 6 groups, he assigned each of the 6 groups a different horse in a 6 horse race, therefore 5/6ths were eliminated and 1/6th won. He then took the remaining 1/6 and split them into 6 again, and so on. One woman won every time because....
SOMEONE HAD TO.
IT WAS STATISTICALLY GUARANTEED.
The odds were 1/7,776, but there were 7,776 people with all eventualities covered. It was going to happen.
Now. What are the odds of two songs having a passage that sound similar? Just make a number up, any number. One in ten thousand? One in a million? Whatever number you come up with, there is more than that many passages of music in the world. Two of them are going to sound the same.
They have to.
It is statistically guaranteed. |
It's not statistically guaranteed to be a coincidence. You have done a very effective job at proving that, statistically, it could be a coincidence; but just because, statistically, it could be a coincidence, doesn't mean it is.
To break down your argument as it stands into its simplest components, what you are arguing is essentially:
1. There is a finite possibility (we'll call this X) that two melodies, song sections, etc. of independent creation will sound the same.
V
2. "Viva La Vida" - Coldplay and "If I Could Fly" - Joe Satriani each have a melody that sounds the same.
V
3. Thus, "Viva La Vida" - Coldplay and "If I Could Fly" - Joe Satriani must have been independently created.
If you can't see the fallacy in this, I'll spell it out for you: Your proof that the similarities are a coincidence assumes that it is an accepted truth that the similarities are a coincidence. You're assuming the conclusion. What's more, you're assuming that since the 1. is correct, 2. must logically follow 1. to produce 3. because the conclusion is assumed.
You could, at best, use this argument to establish that it can be a coincidence--not that it is. Just because something has a possibility of happening doesn't mean it's going to happen.
I'm confused as to what point exactly you're trying to prove with your example. The woman who won got a tip that helped her win her bets, no? So statistically, she had a 1/7,776 chance of winning, but won because... The odds were actually skewed in her favor? She knew what horses won, and every other person was simply seeded against the fated winner each time. Whoop-de-doo.
I'm not even going to respond to Drevenant anymore, as I've made several efforts to do so, each of which have been summarily ignored, and his arguments basically boil down to outright demonizing Satriani, as if that somehow makes Coldplay's song any more different.
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woodara
Joined: 02 Jun 2007
Posts: 154
Location: Melbourne, Australia
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 7:53 am Post subject: |
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| SeaMoney wrote: | | I don't wish to come off as a jerk for saying this, but Satriani seems to be acting very over-dramatic about the whole situation. |
I agree, saying 'I felt like a dagger went right through my heart' is pretty extreme considering its like 20 seconds of a riff repeated a few times we're talking about here. I'm sure those 3 notes didn't take 10 years to write, its a very minor portion of a long song. |
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thedevilsreject 
Joined: 25 Feb 2007
Posts: 2748
Location: Wrexham, Wales, UK
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Sottle wrote: | This topic is so incredibly frustrating.
Have you guys not noticed that the people not supporting this lawsuit are mostly providing reasoned explanations as to why it's ridiculous and the people who are are just mostly repeating "yeah, they sound the same" and "Coldplay suck!" over and over again?
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Heh, way to shrug off the people who actually have tried to shake off their musical opinion and try and provide a decent argument. I would probably have found that offensive but unlike some you said most and didn't generalise it to all.
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One more stab at proving this is a coincidence. A lot of things annoy me, but the average person assuming that a coincidence is the least likely explanation for things instead of in most cases, the most, is pretty much top of the list. If i convince one person, then i consider it a victory.
Now. What are the odds of two songs having a passage that sound similar? Just make a number up, any number. One in ten thousand? One in a million? Whatever number you come up with, there is more than that many passages of music in the world. Two of them are going to sound the same.
They have to.
It is statistically guaranteed. |
Don't buy this argument either, sure I could if it was say the just the chord progression or the melody line, however it's both, and to me at least it's frighteningly close. It won't help Coldplay's case in my opinion that the entire song nearly is built upon the same chord progression. Personally I think Coldplay deserve to lose just based upon the first verse, and drevenant how you can have the temerity to say Martins voice doesn't follow the guitar line is well and truly beyond me.
Finally if anyone wants my musical opinion it is that I actually don't mind Coldplay at all, sure I think Muse and Radiohead are both far better bands but I find a lot of their songs very enjoyable, though I won't deny being an avid Satriani fan; my musical opinion has NOTHING to do with the fact I support Satch and not Coldplay
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Sottle
Joined: 14 May 2006
Posts: 3050
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:01 pm Post subject: |
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I am not saying that those two particular songs must have been created independently, nowhere did i say that, or even allude to it. You'll notice i never use the names of any particular songs.
The burden of proof is on Joe Satriani, remember that. What i'm saying, is that in this situation, with no substantial evidence either way, it is safer to assume coincidence than anything else. And that is true for almost any scenario you can think of, which is why i get so worked up about this. Dismissal of coincidence is at the root of so much broken thinking in the world.
| Quote: | | I would probably have found that offensive but unlike some you said most and didn't generalise it to all. |
Yes, i did. So i don't see why you felt the need to take issue with it at all.
I'm done with this topic, i'm pissing people off and that's not my intention. I don't really care enough about the lawsuit to continue. If anyone does want to continue send me a PM.
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Drevenant
Joined: 23 Aug 2007
Posts: 562
Location: Foley, AL
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Confrontational wrote: | | I'm not even going to respond to Drevenant anymore, as I've made several efforts to do so, each of which have been summarily ignored, and his arguments basically boil down to outright demonizing Satriani, as if that somehow makes Coldplay's song any more different. |
I haven't ignored you, I've read every post in this topic, and if I haven't replied to you, I'm sorry. I've honestly been busy replying to everything else.
I'm not trying to demonize Satriani here. I'm trying to prove that his means in this situation are completely unjust. As far as I can tell, Satriani isn't doing this for legitimate reasons, and to me, this is obvious. And as a human instinct I want people to understand what I understand; that Satriani is most likely doing this as a business move, and that he himself doubtfully has a problem with Viva La Vida. Of course, there's no way for me to prove that, so I can just drop that part for now and get on with the coincidence business.
Imagine every song in the world is represented by a different colored gumball. INEVITABLY, there will be similar colors in this large gumball machine. It's like Viva La Vida is blue, and If I Could Fly is dark blue or something. They may be similar in a way or two but in no way are they the same. You see what I'm saying? There's no case behind this, this is what HAPPENS in music. I don't believe Coldplay plagiarized at all. Whether Joe Satriani has a case to win, I don't know nor is that what I'm arguing about. He might win. Who cares? His means are unjust. That's what I care about. These songs are undoubtedly sort of similar in a part or two, obviously, but that is NOT plagiarism. Coldplay did not sit down, and decide they were going to STEAL this melody together.
Plagiarism is justified by two things being the same. If it was obviously stolen, which isn't true in this case because there is no proof of that, then that would be plagiarism. But these sections of both songs that sound similar are not the same at all.
If music is not allowed to be similar, then I don't know what the fuck music is anymore. To me, this is OBVIOUSLY a coincidence, and I'm going to back that up no matter what anyone says, until Coldplay confesses, I'm not going to believe otherwise.
| thedevilsreject wrote: | | and drevenant how you can have the temerity to say Martins voice doesn't follow the guitar line is well and truly beyond me. |
I never said it didn't follow the guitar line, not in those words. I've said that it doesn't fit NEAR as well as everyone claims it does. Again, similarity.
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sunshine
Joined: 03 Oct 2006
Posts: 1945
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Drevenant wrote: | | Nubnut wrote: | | "Coldplay didn't want to talk about it. They just wanted this whole thing to go away." |
I find this line particularly immature of him to say. Coldplay doesn't say anything immediately. So he assumes they're blowing it off? |
The song's been out for like half a year. |
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Deimor
Joined: 27 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| sunshine wrote: | | Drevenant wrote: | | Nubnut wrote: | | "Coldplay didn't want to talk about it. They just wanted this whole thing to go away." |
I find this line particularly immature of him to say. Coldplay doesn't say anything immediately. So he assumes they're blowing it off? |
The song's been out for like half a year. |
And Satriani announced he was suing the Coldplay, what, a week ago?
And they made a response on their website, apparently. |
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thedevilsreject
Joined: 25 Feb 2007
Posts: 2748
Location: Wrexham, Wales, UK
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:54 pm Post subject: |
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| Sottle wrote: |
| Quote: | | I would probably have found that offensive but unlike some you said most and didn't generalise it to all. |
Yes, i did. So i don't see why you felt the need to take issue with it at all.
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Looking back I don't know why I did either, many apologies man 
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Drevenant
Joined: 23 Aug 2007
Posts: 562
Location: Foley, AL
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 6:05 pm Post subject: |
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| Deimor wrote: | | sunshine wrote: | | Drevenant wrote: | | Nubnut wrote: | | "Coldplay didn't want to talk about it. They just wanted this whole thing to go away." |
I find this line particularly immature of him to say. Coldplay doesn't say anything immediately. So he assumes they're blowing it off? |
The song's been out for like half a year. |
And Satriani announced he was suing the Coldplay, what, a week ago?
And they made a response on their website, apparently. |
Yeah, the song's been around for about half a year, Satriani made his claim about a week ago, and because Coldplay didn't immediately reply, Satriani claims they "just want it to go away". He has no premise to claim such a thing.
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iimeanyii
Joined: 24 Feb 2008
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Location: St.Gergorge, Ut
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 9:59 pm Post subject: |
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| Drevenant wrote: | | Deimor wrote: | | sunshine wrote: | | Drevenant wrote: | | Nubnut wrote: | | "Coldplay didn't want to talk about it. They just wanted this whole thing to go away." |
I find this line particularly immature of him to say. Coldplay doesn't say anything immediately. So he assumes they're blowing it off? |
The song's been out for like half a year. |
And Satriani announced he was suing the Coldplay, what, a week ago?
And they made a response on their website, apparently. |
Yeah, the song's been around for about half a year, Satriani made his claim about a week ago, and because Coldplay didn't immediately reply, Satriani claims they "just want it to go away". He has no premise to claim such a thing. |
Just because he made the claim a week doesn't mean that he couldn't have tried contacting them over a month ago.
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killzonedout
Joined: 12 Jul 2008
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:09 pm Post subject: |
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Coldplay is guilty. I like them, and satriani, but there is too much in common.
By the way, stop the complaining in this thread. People have these mystical things deep inside, called "opinions". If I am right, you must have one right now, and are wither agreeing with or readying the brick that will soon be thrown into my window.
Keep it classy, folks.
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tormentedbyu
Joined: 25 Feb 2007
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Location: Katy, TX
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| Posted: Thu Dec 11, 2008 10:21 pm Post subject: |
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| thedevilsreject wrote: | | Sottle wrote: | This topic is so incredibly frustrating.
Have you guys not noticed that the people not supporting this lawsuit are mostly providing reasoned explanations as to why it's ridiculous and the people who are are just mostly repeating "yeah, they sound the same" and "Coldplay suck!" over and over again?
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Heh, way to shrug off the people who actually have tried to shake off their musical opinion and try and provide a decent argument. I would probably have found that offensive but unlike some you said most and didn't generalise it to all.
| Quote: |
One more stab at proving this is a coincidence. A lot of things annoy me, but the average person assuming that a coincidence is the least likely explanation for things instead of in most cases, the most, is pretty much top of the list. If i convince one person, then i consider it a victory.
Now. What are the odds of two songs having a passage that sound similar? Just make a number up, any number. One in ten thousand? One in a million? Whatever number you come up with, there is more than that many passages of music in the world. Two of them are going to sound the same.
They have to.
It is statistically guaranteed. |
Don't buy this argument either, sure I could if it was say the just the chord progression or the melody line, however it's both, and to me at least it's frighteningly close. It won't help Coldplay's case in my opinion that the entire song nearly is built upon the same chord progression. Personally I think Coldplay deserve to lose just based upon the first verse, and drevenant how you can have the temerity to say Martins voice doesn't follow the guitar line is well and truly beyond me.
Finally if anyone wants my musical opinion it is that I actually don't mind Coldplay at all, sure I think Muse and Radiohead are both far better bands but I find a lot of their songs very enjoyable, though I won't deny being an avid Satriani fan; my musical opinion has NOTHING to do with the fact I support Satch and not Coldplay |
When I heard the two songs... I thought they sounded incredibly similar. But for a while I was one of those Coldplay basher that blindly said that they sucked (within the past 2 years I've found my musical tastes broadened and now admit that for the most part they write pretty damn decent music) and I've always been a fan of Satriani's. So I figure, the only way I could possibly look at this from a fair prospective is to let an unbiased party listen to it.
Enter my grandmother. To give a little background information, her side of the family is where I get any and all musical talent from. She's played piano since she was a teen, she reads music, has decent knowledge of music theory, and comes from a family that as I said before is insanely musically talented (all my great-uncles having played either guitar, bass, drums, or a combination of the three since they were about 6 or 7, some of them playing with famous country musicians). She had never heard of Coldplay before (though I'm sure she had listened to one or two of their songs unknowingly before, simply before some of their damn songs are everywhere... but she did NOT know the band) and she certainly hadn't heard of Joe Satriani.
So I sit her down and tell her, "Will you do me a favor and listen to these two songs? Just tell me if you see any similarities in these two songs at all."
I showed her Viva La Vida then If I Could Fly. A few seconds into If I Could Fly she says, "That's almost the exact same thing." At which point we discussed that it might be coincidence that a chord progression could get reused, or a short melody... but definitely not one so repetitive COMBINED with the exact same chord progression.
Then I asked her, "So all things considered, would you say that he has grounds for a lawsuit?"
She said, "Definitely."
Just a little something I thought some of you might be interested in.
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