Rockblog

Rock guitarist extrordinare Joe Satriani has sued the band Coldplay for alledgedly plagiarizing one of his songs.

According to Reuters, Satriani’s copyright infringement suit, filed on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Coldplay song “Viva La Vida” incorporates “substantial original portions” of his 2004 instrumental “If I Could Fly.”

The Rockblog can’t figure out why Satriani would want to admit that Coldplay, probably the most boring band in the world, stole one of his songs.

We then find out Joe is seeking a jury trial, damages and “any and all profits” attributable to the alleged copyright infringement. Of course, “any and all profits” is a good enough reason.

If Satriani really wanted to win this case he should have filed in Germany. Earlier this week a German court found ex-Thin Lizzy guitarist Gary Moore guilty of plagerising a guitar solo on his 199o song “Still Got The Blues”.

The song he supposedly plagerised was not released until 2000, but was played live on a German radio station in 1974. So on the off chance Gary did hear it, he filed it away for another 16 years before using it. Crazy shit like this makes us thankful the Germans didn’t win the war. 

As far as the Joe Satriani case, there are videos on YouTube comparing the two songs. I was going to post it on here, but would never be able to fogive myself for subjecting the Rockblog readership to listening to Coldplay.

The Rockblog wishes Joe Satriani lots of luck in this case and wonders why he couldn’t also have filed a cease and desist order on Coldplay as well.