ABSTRACT
On 4 December 2008, Joe Satriani – an American instrumental rock guitarist and Grammy Award nominee – fi led a music copyright infringement suit against the members of the British pop band Coldplay ( Satriani v. Martin et al. 2008). In his complaint, Satriani claimed that the Coldplay song ‘Viva La Vida’ (which won a 2009 Grammy Award for Song of the Year) had ‘copied and incorporated substantial, original portions’ of his musical composition ‘If I Could Fly’ from his 2004 album, Is There Love in Space? Coldplay publicly denied any wrongdoing, stating Satriani ‘did not write or have any infl uence on the song’ and that ‘if there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental and just as surprising to us as to him’. In court papers, Coldplay also claimed that Satriani’s song ‘lacked originality’ and should therefore not receive copyright protection.
