Is Coldplay's 'Viva la Vida' a rip-off?

Thanks to James Hyman for forwarding me this Utube link. Pretty convincing stuff, I'm afraid. So my bet is that this will cost Coldplay a lot of money as Viva la Vida does sound almost exactly like Joe Satriani's 'If I could fly'.



On the other hand, alternative band Creaky board also accused Coldplay of ripping off parts of Viva la vida from their track 'Songs I didn't write' (that title sounds almost like a piss-take of the situation, doesn't it?)

Creaky Boards later retracted the accusations and now speculate that both songs may have been inspired by the video game The Legend of Zelda (do you think they were given something to retract their claim?)

Click here to hear the comparison between those & more 'songs that sound like other songs'.

I actually believe that people do this stuff by accident. They start humming a melody they have heard somewhere, somehow & they think it's their own idea. It just has this 'familiar feel' to it (which is normally a good thing when you write a song). And- even when they aren't 100% sure that is an original idea- when they run it by other people and ask them if they've ever heard it before, those people all say no. Because the original is quite obscure. So, before you know it, you've ripped someone off. When you rip someone off knowingly, you make enough little changes to your song so no one can sue you (something Noel Galagher, for instance, is a star at ; )

Please tell me your verdict. Guilty or not?