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Joe Satriani v. Christopher Martin et al. (Coldplay) is back in the news now that laywers for Coldplay and Capitol Records have filed their responses to Satriani’s copyright infringement claim. They list nine defenses, including the tack that Satriani’s song “lacks originality and is thus not protectable by copyright”.  This was the argument of our previous post on the case, where we provided several songs, spanning decades, which share the same melodic structure as the tunes under litigation.  Still there were those partisans who were unconvinced and claimed that if we would only transcribe the two melodies — the chorus of  “If I Could Fly” and the opening verse of “Viva la Vida” — we’d see that they are note-for-note identical and that Coldplay’s collective goose is cooked.  We transcribe, you decide. Continue for more.

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Say what you will about Coldplay, they know how to write a good melody.  In the middle of 2008, they released “Viva la Vida”, a tune so catchy it made its way to the number one slot of both the U.S. and U.K. charts, a first for the band.  When you find yourself dancing in silhouette in an Apple commercial, you have achieved something notable.

There is a rub, though.  That opening melody was catchy enough to attract the attention of guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani who, hearing a striking similarity to a riff in his earlier composition “If I Could Fly”, decided to sue Coldplay for plagiarism.  Here is the part alleged to have been stolen:

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But why stop with Coldplay?  If Mr. Satriani would cast his net a bit wider, he might have the potential for an even larger payout.  Continue on for the scandalous history of this melody.

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