Guitar legend, Joe Satriani has launched a lawsuit against Grammy nominees Coldplay for stealing his song and using one of his riffs without permission. In the documents filed in LA on Thursday Satriani claims that Viva La Vida was taken from his 2004 instrumental song, If I Could Fly and said their song used “substantial original portions” of his.
Should the case goes before a jury, and Coldplay is found guilty of plagiarism, Satriani may be coming into some big money. The album and song from Coldplay are both hits as well as are important parts of Apple’s iTunes successful advertisement campaign.
Attorneys must prove that Coldplay had heard the Joe Satriani song before they wrote Viva La Vida.
The vocal line of the chorus of Coldplay’s Vida La Vida does seem to follow one of the riffs from Satriani’s If I Could Fly — watch the video below to hear the case rather convincingly presented:
