Apparently Joe Satriani’s lawsuit over the similarities between his 2004 track and Coldplay’s megahit from last year “Viva La Vida” has been settled, as the suit was dismissed earlier this week. A few legal types have suggested to Billboard that money might have changed hands, which I guess will ease Satriani’s sting over Coldplay not being forced to apologize for what they’ve done. Relive the days when lawsuits ruled these two parties’ world with John P. Strohm’s thoughts on the case, or embeds of the two tracks after the jump. More »
Are people really clamoring for the album by the Joe Satriani/Sammy Hagar/Michael Anthony/Chad Smith collaboration known as Chickenfoot? People seem to think so; the release of their debut album has been pushed up to next Friday, June 5, and the band will be on the now-Conan-hosted Tonight that same day. One wonders why a release date is important at all, since in the above clip the always-in-the-know Sammy Hagar mutters something about all the fans in attendance “steal[ing] that shit anyway,” but I guess I shouldn’t question the business acumen of a notorious beverage mogul. [Blabbermouth] More »
Joe Satriani’s plagiarism lawsuit against Coldplay, which pits his song “If I Could Fly” against their 2008 hit “Viva La Vida,” could theoretically use YouTube comments in its arguments, according to lawyers at the firm Kilpatrick Stockton. Writing in the trade journal Entertainment Law & Finance, Joseph M. Beck, Christopher P. Bussert, and James A. Trigg argue that the free-for-all on Google’s video-sharing site could help either side of the case: More »
Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” has been attracting heat from a lot of musicians who feel that the British band ripped off their songs for the purposes of crafting the iTunes-shilling track. (A sampling of three songs that bear an undeniable similarity to Chris Martin & Co.’s track is above.) The band’s drummer, Will Champion, took some time out of his playing with drum machines to talk to Virginian-Pilot pop writer Malcolm Venable about the controversies, and how the problem isn’t his band’s lack of originality–it’s everyone’s! More »
So much for Joe Satriani’s legal underlings… More »
Joe Satriani‘s copyright-infringement lawsuit against Coldplay—who, the guitarist claims, ripped off his song “If I Could Fly” on the Grammy-nominated title track from their Grammy-nominated album Viva La Vida—is still supposed to proceed, but there’s been one problem: The process servers who are supposed to serve Coldplay with the j’accuse outlining the terms of the lawsuit haven’t been able to catch up with Chris Martin and his merry men just yet. So what’s a lawyer to do? How about unleashing those process servers on a splashy red-carpet event that his client’s target is sure to be at, thanks to said target maybe picking up a boatload of awards that evening?
