Viva La Vida: Coldplay Need A Good Lawyer

Coldplay, one of the world’s hottest bands is being sued by rock n roll guitarist Joe Satriani. Satriani is accusing the British band of plagiarizing one of his songs.

Never heard of Satriani? We hadn’t either until this law suit (but then guitar instrumentalists aren’t really our thing), but musically he is pretty well known. Satriani’s filed the copyright infringement law suit, late this week in the Los Angeles federal court. The suit claims the Coldplay song Viva La Vida (which is a rockin track) incorporates “substantial original portions” of his 2004 song “If I Could Fly.”

Satriani is seeking a jury trial, damages and “any and all profits” attributable to the alleged copyright infringement. We know why he wants the jury trial, he wants to play them the youtube clip below. Someone has helpfully done a mashup of the 2 songs and its pretty convincing. Coldplay, you bastards!

Coldplay recently cleaned up with 7 Grammy nominations including for Viva La Vida which was nominated for song of the year. On the album Viva La Vida is attributed to the band’s four members, Chris Martin, lead singer; bass player Guy Berryman; guitarist Johnny Buckland; and drummer Will Champion.

This is definitely a “bum note”, for the band, it ensures news of their grammy nominations falls “flat” and the argument over the “riff off” will continue for sometime. Boom tish. Massive sales of Coldplay’s album and the Viva La Vida single will ensure they can afford the best lawyer possible, which is good because we think they might need it.