Guitarist sues Coldplay, YouTubers compare songs

Twinkle, twinkle little star and the ABC song aren't plagiarized because A) their old folk tunes that were in existence before people were obsessed with making money off of music and B) no one's made millions of dollars from these little ditties.

The similarities between the Coldplay and Satriani songs are more than curious and more than coincidence. It's not the first time plagiarism charges have been made against Coldplay and not the first time the accusations seem very real. Where there's smoke, there's fire.

The melodic theme used for "Twinkle, twinkle", "ABCDEFG...", and "Bah, bah blacksheep" was originally written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart from his 12 Variations for Piano, Ah! Vous dirai-je, Maman, K265, first publication in 1761.

Mr. Alexander is correct, this process has been going on for a long time. Our national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner" is set to the tune of a British drinking song, "The Anacreontic Song". This was not an unusual practice for the day, songs were often set to a popular tune.

If you take Satriani's guitar hook line of (F#-G-E) ie: same melodic progression as the coldplay vocal line of "rule the world", out of his song, and this is a total non-event. Sorry Joe, 2 bars does not plagarism make, but you will be receiving some royalties as many listen to a song they would otherwise never have heard of.
Great guitar though!

Satriani's a has-been and Hagar's a never-was. They're just trying to get people to remember who they are. With a little electronic savvy, you can make a mash-up "prove" anything you want. I'm sure Coldplay's lawyers will call up equally savvy "experts" to disprove Satriani's claims. There are a finite number of musical notes and chords, so similarities are inevitable.

A lot of the YouBoobers are playing the Coldplay backlash game and are willing to do/believe anything negative about the band. Get a life!

Emily Mitchell is only partly correct ... the tune "Ah vous dirai ..." already existed when Mozart wrote his piano variations ... in fact his title refers to it as "ein franzosiches Lied" (A French song). So Mozart ALSO did not write Twinkle-ABCD-Bah bah black sheep" but he had a lot of fun with it! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71f2fahFhDE

Coldplay doesn't sit well with many indie rock bands because some feel their ideas (e.g. melodies) were ripped by them (see for example the Brooklyn band Creaky Boards).

Case in point, rumors have it that the song Talk, from Coldplay's X&Y, was originally sold as a Colplay song. After some people pointed out that the main melody was a blatant note for note copy of the song Computer Love by German band Kraftwerk, Colplay changed their story and said that the song was some sort of tribute to the German band.

What surprised me the most was to see the tv coverage CNN gave of the story (on June 9th 2009). Both reporters seemed clearly biased in Coldplay's favor, they also implied that Satriani, like many others, were simply out there to profit from another artists fame.

Their points ridiculed the fact that to an artist, plagiarism is something very difficult to swallow. Imagine you created an awesome invention only to see someone take it, change the colors, and sell it as his own.

Calling it a rip-off means that you know that Colplay knowingly copied parts of the melody. That part, even if true, would be hard to prove in court.

On the other hand, the fact that many bands have and still are pointing the finger at Coldplay on similar issues gives more weight to the allegations being true.

Either way, name-calling either in Satriani's or Colplay's direction remains a bad argument.

Personally, I am a fan of Colplay (and was a fan of Satriani in the early 90s), I'm a university trained musician, and I think that there are great similarities between the two songs melodies.

"Calling it a rip-off means that you know that Coldplay knowingly copied parts of the melody. That part, even if true, would be hard to prove in court."

How about the words of Christ Martin himself? He's said before that they knowing steal from others – from Rolling Stone interviews:

"Martin loves technology as much as Kip Dynamite — he and the band have spent hours on their computers referencing their favorite works, for their own sordid purposes."We can be working on something and go, ‘We should steal this from My Bloody Valentine and this from Rammstein and this from Jay-Z’s first album, and then listen to this classical piece by Holst,'" he says. "It’s a plagiarist’s paradise. We used to just be able to steal off Radiohead. Now we can steal off everybody.'"
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“We’re definitely good, but I don’t think you can say we’re that original,” he notes. “I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists."
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Or regarding their song “Fix You”, mentioned as being a copy of Elbow’s “Grace Under Pressure”, guitarist Jonny Buckland had this to say:

“We’ve never so directly stolen off anyone before. We’ve never paid for our plagiarism.”

Coldplay could easily find themselves in hot water simply because they stole from others, and didn't shut up about it. They've admitted to doing it in the past, and even called it plagiarism, not "being inspired by".

Most people arguing this, argue from the emotionally retarded view of who they do or don't like.

The law doesn't care whose better or more popular.

All music is derived from inspiration, so similarities are common in music (esp of the same genre). It only becomes a big deal when a song becomes a big hit and everyone wants a piece of the pie.

There are similarities (a riff) in both songs song, but the songs are also very different.

It will be difficult to prove Coldplay purposely tried to steal something from Satriani, as it is possible for two people come up with a similar "riff." In fact many riffs have become popular and highly used in music.

In the end courts will listen to both songs and decide if Coldplay purposely violated copyright laws (which is unlikely) and whether or not the songs are unique to each author. Similarities can exist in music without copyright violation.

Personally I think both should have resolved this without the courts.

Satriani should have toned down the rehetoric and Coldplay should have been willing to discuss this matter.

This may still be settled out at some point (at least I hope).