There have been a number of high-profile plagiarism charges in pop history - George Harrison/Chiffons, Rolling Stones/Verve and Cat Stevens/Flaming Lips all come to mind -- but you have to look long and hard to find two (or three) charges about the same song.
In December, Joe Satriani filed a copyright infringement suit against Coldplay alleging the British band took the melody for the Grammy-winning song "Viva La Vida" from his instrumental "If I Could Fly." New York indie band Creaky Boards then made a similar claim.
This week, Cat Stevens alleged that the melody came from a small portion of his 18-minute song "Foreigner Suite." He told Britain's Sun Newspaper, "There's been this argument about Coldplay stealing this melody from Joe Satriani, but, if you listen to it, it's mine! It's the Foreigner Suite, it is!"
I ran this past Coldplay guitarist Jonny Buckland in an interview on May 6 and he said, "I just did an interview about 20 minutes ago and that was the first someone told be about it. That was the first I heard it."
He added sheepishly, "Are we being sued?"
No, it looks like Stevens is holding off on a law suit.
Buckland didn't want to comment further, but did joke, "Well, we can't have copied both of them..."
We'll leave that to the judge, but in the meantime, does this mean Cat Stevens could sue Joe Satriani and Creaky Boards?
You can check out the comparisons at stereogum
Comment below, or register to comment
Posted
May 06 2009, 03:05 PM
by
Scott Mervis