Coldplay: "We Haven't Ripped Anyone Off"
Will Champion claims that "no one owns notes"...
Coldplay drummer Will Champion has hit back at the latest claims that his band has copied someone else's work. Following legal moves from US guitar hero Joe Satriani that Chris Martin and co plagiarised the melody of his track 'If I Could Fly' for their hit 'Viva La Vida', 70s folkie Cat Stevens aka Yusuf Islam has alleged that it actually sounds like his song 'Foreigner Suite'.
Speaking to www.hamptonroads.com, Champion said, "It's tough when people accuse you of stealing something when you know that you didn't. So, we accept that it's part of the territory and know it is only for some reason, God only knows why, the successful songs that seem to be the ones that are accused of being stolen. So you go figure it out."
The drummer went on to say that there was always a problem defining who actually "owned" a piece of music. "There are elements of our music that I've heard in other people's music but it's kind of...I don't know. It's interesting but a very difficult thing to define. There are only eight notes in an octave and no one owns them. And there are probably about 12,000 songs that feature the exact same chord progression. I think it lies on an intent to steal, which we certainly have never done and never would. So it's unfortunate but it's the way people are. That's that. We're confident we haven't done anything wrong."
Coldplay have already sent their legal men in to deny stealing the Satriani tune, but it remains to be seem whether Yusuf will be calling his lawyer any time soon...
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