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Viva La Lawsuit!

It won't come as a shock to most of you that I am no fan of Coldplay. In fact, I hate them. Coldplay, to me, embodies the spirit of blandness. Their massive audience is a testament to their ability to completely boil out anything interesting (and thus possibly objectionable) from their songs, to the point where everyone seems to like them, but no one is really sure why. "Nobody said it was easy; no one ever said it would be so hard." Is there anyone who disagrees with this axiom? Does anyone feel moved by it?

Another example: their latest mega-hit is called "Viva la Vida," which means "Live the Life." What kind of life, Coldplay? "Oh, you know, 'the.'" Even Ricky Martin managed to specify that we should live the crazy life! And although Ricky's message was kind of annoying, Coldplay has no message at all. No ideology. Nothing to ponder or embrace. Coldplay is the musical equivalent of the word "the."

Why am I posting this on a law blog? First, because it's been kind of a slow week at N & B. Second, because Coldplay is getting sued! Talented guitarist Joe Satriani has long claimed "Viva La Vida" is a direct rip-off of his instrumental "If I Could Fly." (You can compare the two tracks here.) The long-brewing suit finally landed in a Los Angeles court this week. Check out Coldplay's defense strategy:

Coldplay?s lawyers argued that the similarities between ?Viva la Vida? and ?If I Could Fly? weren?t enough to warrant a lawsuit. The band?s legal team also stated that Satriani?s instrumental ?lacked originality,? and thus shouldn?t be covered by copyright law, therefore preventing ?Viva La Vida? from violating any copyrights.

Come on, that's pretty hilarious. In order to defend themselves from a plagiarism suit, Coldplay has had to espouse their own lack of originality! Basically, "this song couldn't have been copied, because there's nothing new or interesting about it! It's unoriginal as a matter of law." I couldn't agree more.

Ok, thanks for indulging me. If any of you copyright aficionados would like to weigh in, I'd love to hear from you in the comments.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on April 08, 2009 (boomark / email).