Coldplay, "Glass of Water" (Live)

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Coldplay vs. Satriani

This seems like awfully slender evidence for copyright infringement. These kind of coincidences happen all the time in music (See Alex Ross' ingenious observation about Queen & Copland), and what's at issue here is so simple and common a pattern that Satriani can hardly lay claim to inventing it.

In the clip below, both songs are played side by side and then juxtaposed with pitch alterations to match them. They both are a variation on an escape tone pattern, where the 7th of the chord steps up and then leaps down to the 5th of the next chord. You could hear this basic lick about 30 different times a night in a jazz club. Though the rhythm and character here are strikingly similar, is this really what copyright is meant to protect? My hunch is no.