Since I first posted on the striking similarities between Coldplay's Viva la Vida and a Creaky Boards song, there have been numerous, compelling complaints of plagiarism against Coldplay regarding their smash hit. The Beach Boys haven't sued for the homage Coldplay's backing vocalist pays near the song's conclusion, but everybody else seemingly has a gripe about unattributed borrowings. I can't award monetary damages to the complainants, but I can highlight their cases. Listen to the tunes below, and determine if they have a case or a case of the sour grapes:

Joe Satriani--If I Could Fly (around the 1 minute mark)
Blur--Sing (around the 30 second mark)
Cat Stevens--Foreigner Suite (around the 5:19 mark)
Creaky Boards--Songs I Didn't Write (immediately)
New Order--Round & Round (around the 1:10 mark)

Dan, I love your books (especially IM), but as a musician myself who's somewhat close to the industry and has friends in it, this is far from plagiarism. Nobody ever copyrighted a chord progression, not to mention the fact that the chord progression and time signature for Viva La Vida as well as all of your rip-off-ees has been used in many more than these. Besides, why isn't your post about how Satriani ripped off Blur, or how Creaky Boards stole from New Order, or how Cat Stevens, aka Usef Islam, should have all record of his musical career thrown down the proverbial memory hole (just kidding about the last one)? I know it's not new, but if you want an open and shut case of musical plagiarism, see Vanilla Ice's rip of Queen's "Under Pressure." THAT is plagiarism.

Josh, Dan's post probably has something to do with the fact that Joe Satriani and now Cat Stevens (and possibly the others) have specifically made complaints against Coldplay.

Musical plagiarism isn't usually as clear cut as verbal, but the fact they they made millions off this and are getting sued makes it an interesting question here. I think their biggest diffence is not any lack of similarity between theirs and Satriani's song (the similarity is immediately evident), but the large number of other people who are claiming a hand in the tune. Proverbs are public domain.

I made my living as a songwriter and otherwise pop musician for some years, and with Josh, I would point out that it is almost impossible not to 'quote' someone when writing a song. Personally, I don't believe in intellectual property rights. If someone rips off my idea, well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and money and fame aren't all-important to me. We should also note that sometimes a rip-off is better than the original (see: My Sweet Lord). Bach and Mozart were widely understood to be 'plagiarists' in their day, but it was also widely understood that they simply did better with their material. In the Coldplay case, I don't care for their song, but I also will admit that they put together all the right touches to make it a mega-hit. None of those complaining of their borrowing accomplish that (and probably didn't want to).
Finally, the chord progression and melody of this bit is so mundane, I bet we could find ten more songs based on it, if we really cared to. So the long and short, the similarities are obvious, but I don't support Creaky Boards or Satriani and the rest in their claims to be owed some of the profits.

Satriani is not at all bad on the guitar.

I really don't get people who "do not believe in intellectual property rights." Obviously they are a legal development in the last several hundred years, so that's no argument: so is the mechanical reproduction of literary and cultural works.

I made my living as a songwriter and otherwise pop musician for some years, and with Josh, I would point out that it is almost impossible not to 'quote' someone when writing a song. Personally, I don't believe in intellectual property rights. If someone rips off my idea, well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and money and fame aren't all-important to me. We should also note that sometimes a rip-off is better than the original (see: My Sweet Lord). Bach and Mozart were widely understood to be 'plagiarists' in their day, but it was also widely understood that they simply did better with their material. In the Coldplay case, I don't care for their song, but I also will admit that they put together all the right touches to make it a mega-hit. None of those complaining of their borrowing accomplish that (and probably didn't want to).
Finally, the chord progression and melody of this bit is so mundane, I bet we could find ten more songs based on it, if we really cared to. So the long and short, the similarities are obvious, but I don't support Creaky Boards or Satriani and the rest in their claims to be owed some of the profits.

xantippe: There are good laws and bad laws. I don't believe that intellectual property rights, by and large, make for good law. Obviously, we have laws that intend to protect intellectual property (as defined under those laws), and if Creaky Boards wants to make use of them to get a cut of Coldplay's profits, they should go ahead. I personally don't believe that such laws ultimately benefit the artists and our society, and were it my song that Coldplay ripped off, I wouldn't sue. In fact, I give away all the music I compose.

There is a difference in the development of abstract ideas like laws and technological advancements like digital reproduction. We can choose to remove laws from lawcodes, in which case they no longer 'exist' in practice. But we can't un-invent the tape recorder. So I'm not sure that I understand the connection that you are making.

Beowulf wrote:
and if Creaky Boards wants to make use of them to get a cut of Coldplay's profits, they should go ahead.

There would be no cut of any profit without Creaky Boards ever writing the song that evolved into Viva La Vida. Creaky Boards do not deserve a cut of Coldplay's profit, they are owed all of it.

But Jackie, the similarity with Satriani is bigger: does he deserve _all_ of the profits, too? And what about the work that Coldplay put in -- afterall, it is _their_ song that made so much money, so clearly something about what they did made a really big difference. It is the manyness of the similarities and possible creative forces here that make this case interesting, and not just highway robbery as you pretend.

It is highway robbery.
Xantippe wrote: And what about the work that Coldplay put in -- afterall, it is _their_ song that made so much money, so clearly something about what they did made a really big difference

Yeh, such a magical experience. The magical part is having a label like Parlophone or Capitol pumping millions of dollars into your work. That's what made the money here, not Chris Martin's creative endeavors; he left that up to the Creaky Boards.
Xantippe, comedians do this all the time. Established comics go into dingy rooms all over the US and rob from road comics and open mic'ers. Dane Cook, Dennis Leary, Carlos Mencia, and other top names are all rumored to be guilty of this. What do they have to lose? When you are established as a paramount force in your field, who's going to believe an indie rock band or a road comic when they cry foul? I suspect Coldplay wasn't going club to club in Brooklyn looking for the next big thing to steal. Instead, some producer tip-toed around myspace music pages and discovered some sounds he liked from bands that will never make it, then stole them. In other words, the internet, this progressive tool for indie bands, did nothing but market the Creaky Boards to a record label...Someone else's record label.

Jackie: you miss the point. The Creaky Boards song just wouldn't ever make that kind of money -- not because of the record label or the cost of production, but because they lack the TALENT. Listen to the dude's voice and compare it to Chris Martin's. You don't have to like the song to realize that that his airy little voice is out of its league.

Why, unless you are a member of Creaky Boards, would you pretend like CB did "all" the creative work? It doesn't make sense. There is just as much evidence that he ripped off Satriana.

Even if they directly ripped them both off -- instead of just using common themes shared by a number of songs, which is a rather smart defense -- it is the WHOLE song, with BOTH motifs, that made the money.

Pop music, by definition, plays to the lowest common denominator and as a result is almost (note the almost) always cliched and derivative.

It's true that Coldplay is uniquely talented, though - who else can use that many words in a song, and still end up with lyrics devoid of meaning? Impressive.

Wow, another knee-jerk conservative...what a suprise. Something I hate almost as much as I hate knee-jerk, ignorant liberals.