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).

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.

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".

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.

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.

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!

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.