Coldplay Not Living La Vida Lawsuit

By PopEater Staff Posted Sep 22nd 2009 08:48AM

The seemingly never-ending lawsuit over Coldplay's song 'Vida La Vida' has finally ended. Guitarist Joe Satriani sued the band in December, claiming the band copied "substantial, original portions" of his 2004 song, 'If I Could Fly' in its Grammy-winning hit. According to the Associated Press, a federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed the copyright infringement case at the request of attorneys for both sides.

Compare the two songs in this video.

No details about an agreement were included in court filings, other than each side would pay its own legal costs.

Coldplay snagged a Song of the Year Grammy for the track earlier this year. Satriani's complaint of plagiarism was the third claim against the band - New York band Creaky Boards has said 'Vida La Vida' resembles their track, 'The Songs I Didn't Write' and claims Coldplay singer Chris Martin has heard their song performed live. Also, a month after the band told a federal court that it did not copy parts of Joe Satriani's music, Cat Stevens (aka Yusuf Islam) accused Coldplay of basing the song on his 1970s track 'Foreigner Suite.'

Tags: coldplay, coldplay viva la vida, coldplayvivalavida, joe satriani, JoeSatriani

Comments

(54)

Wednesday 23 September

By Ck

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NOPE ! Don't think so. Luckyily I was not the judge..

By Katse

Surfin' USA = Sweet Little 16

By pat ratchet

coldplay suck. sucky music is very very popular.
while satch is quite talented, i feel his music also sucks. just for different reasons. beyond alot
of obseessed guitarist types, his music is not popular.

i'd bet that coldplay HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF HIM< LET ALONE HIS MUSIC!

they are english wimps who want to sound like U2,
another wildly overated, barely capable band, who have however, persevered through their severe musical limitations to become pretty good songwriters, at least, occasionally.

By zeppelinmad

You can sit down with Chris Martin on any given day and ask him to write you a song about any topic and he can. He lives to write his music...in fact he writes on every blank surface he comes around,including his hands,and arms. He(they)are to talented at songwriting to ever have to steal anything from some one else. The only song I know of by Coldplay to have a lawsuit over was this one.I think the fact that there have been at least 3 differant artists claiming "Viva la Vida"'s melody was they own,shows that several differant people can come up with the same tune.It's only because Coldplay was able to do something with it that the other artists are calling foul. If the song had not been so popular would we be hearing anything from these other artists?

By evelyn27

Couldn't have said it better myself, at least someone on here's got some sense.

By Luce

There are only so many chords in the world, so many beats, so many chord progressions that fit together nicely. As a musician, I see how these songs have the same beat and same chord structure, but that is not intentional stealing. They both probably came up with the same thing on their own. They are sufficiently different in melody and lyric not to warrant a case. Satriani, get a life.

By churchofdan

Wow, and I thought Coldplay sucked with their own music. If they were going to steal music anyway, why couldn't they steal GOOD music?

By Mary Helen

OK, young people, explain to me what "sampling" was, then?? How come people did not sue left and right over THAT?!

By abe

I'm a musician and as a musician you have to understand that number one there is only so many notes that can be played. number two artist take ideas from other artists songs all the time. Bands have influences and listen to music. sometimes when you are writing a song it sometimes sounds exactly like the songs you have been listening to that week. its whatever is in your head. when it comes to fame and fortune everyone wants it. coldplay could take bits and pieces off of the barney theme song and i gurantee it would be one of the best songs ever. get over it.

The Barney theme song!? Haha, I would honestly like to hear that.

By Brian

Do people not understand that this type of "music copying" has always existed dating back to the creation of music? In short, I will use Mozart as an example because most people know the name. He would take pieces composed by Royal Composers and "enhance" it to sound much better. It is sharing a culture and it has become about greed. People cover tunes all the time, but because someone makes your song sound better than you did, they get upset. Glad it was dismissed and hope there wasn't a side settlement we didn't hear about.

By sunnie6572

Joe Satriani is one of the greatest guitar players in the world, his guitar is his lyrics. It didn't take much to see this was lifted right from his song. Joe wouldn't do it just for the money, he surely wouldn't need to, he has enough of his own. I'm sure for him it was the principle and I certainly can't blame him for that but I too wish it would have played out in court, so they could be held accountable

By Scott

"Hey Kids, this is DJ Joe! Let's give a listen to that great new song from Coldplay off their recent CD called "Plagerisim!"

By ivpaul

So, can someone tell me how Kid Rock gets away with totally copping Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" melody and bassline in his silly song about listening to Lynyrd Skynrd's song about Alabama?

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