Sure, but a lot of general plagiarism is done because of laziness or the high reward/low risk math of whatever context it's in. If I plagiarize some code as par

Sure, but a lot of general plagiarism is done because of laziness or the high reward/low risk math of whatever context it's in. If I plagiarize some code as part of my job and don't say where I got it from, it's unlikely anyone will care, or even see it, let alone know where I got it from. Almost everything a major pop artist would put out has at least a shot at becoming a worldwide hit where a vast chunk of the population will hear it. To decide that you're going to plagiarize in that case, when you easily have a massive pool of songwriters and producers who could help you come up with something more original, AND to plagiarize a past #1 hit? You'd have to be pretty dumb. I'd almost believe it was intentional more easily if they were plagiarizing some band I'd never heard of, or from another genre/country. The Coldplay/Satriani suit was a little more believable to me in that way, since it would be easier to go "eh, who even listened to that other song. No one will notice."