A trial is needed to determine if Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven copies its opening notes from a song performed by the rock band Spirit, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S District Judge R. Gary Klausner ruled Friday that lawyers for the trustee of late Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe had shown enough evidence to support a case that Stairway to Heaven copies music from the instrumental Spirit track Taurus.
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Skidmore was able to overcome statute-of-limitations hurdles to sue over Stairway to Heaven because the song was remastered and re-released in 2014.
A jury trial is scheduled for May 10 in Los Angeles. Klausner's ruling removed Zeppelin band member John Paul Jones from the case. Bandmates Robert Plant and Jimmy Page remain defendants in the case.
Wow, It's been a long time, been a long time.
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
Homer: Let's just look. There's Big Ben; there's Piccadilly Circus; there's Jimmy Page, the greatest thief of American black music who ever walked the Earth; Oh, there's the kids.
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I have this foggy memory of a quote from Keith Richards to the effect of there are only so many chords and everybody took from somebody.
But every song has its own fingerprint - Shazam can identify songs simply from the sequence of rising and falling notes in a song.
It is true there are only so many notes in a scale - but are there limitless combinations when you alter tempos, rhythms, harmony, dynamics, keys, pitch and timbre?
Everyone lifts chords and bits of melody here and there. Page went well beyond that. Dazed and Confused is pretty much an unattributed cover of a band Page saw play in New York (he has a remarkable memory for tunes). The fact Led Zep toured with Spirit before they recorded Stairway to Heaven is more than a little suspicious. And when other bands covered traditional blues or folk songs, they'd at least attribute them as 'traditional arrangement.' Page slapped his name on a whole bunch of songs he didn't write.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
Last edited by CliffFletcher; 04-13-2016 at 10:27 AM.
But every song has its own fingerprint - Shazam can identify songs simply from the sequence of rising and falling notes in a song.
It is true there are only so many notes in a scale - but are there limitless combinations when you alter tempos, rhythms, harmony, dynamics, keys, pitch and timbre?
I said it was a "foggy memory".
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Captain James P. DeCOSTE, CD, 18 Sep 1993
The only difference is the Stones' would give credit to the people they ripped off. I love Zeppelin, but there are definitely some ripped off lyrics and riffs. Whole Lotta Love is basically ripped right from Muddy Waters' "You Need Love".
Of course the opening bit of Stairway is a rip off of Taurus but it's a relatively short (albeit iconic) bit of an eight minute song. The problem with Zeppelin and the lineage of so many of their songs is that they were so blase about lifting bits and pieces from others and calling them their own.
Most of this stemmed from Page and their manager Peter Grant and was supported (by silence and inaction mostly) by Atlantic Records (Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler). A complicating factor was that Jimmy Page had almost complete artistic control and he held the publishing rights to the music. Led Zeppelin I, for example, was financed personally by Page, for about $3500 USD, completed in roughly (edit: 18 <- incorrect) 35 studio hours, and he delivered to Atlantic a complete mixed-down album on masters ready for production. This was very unusual in 1968 if not unheard of. It's these kinds of circumstances and conditions that allowed a culture where Zeppelin felt like they could really do anything including take other artists IP and call it their own. The other thing to keep in mind is that in '68 / '69 IP law and the looseness of song authorship and publishing rights was very young and, as other posters have said, nicking other people songs was done all the time by just about everyone. The reason Led Zep gets bagged on so hard is because the songs became so famous and Zeppelin has been so huge and influential.
It's hilariously hypocritical that Willie Dixon successfully sued Zep for appropriating Whole Lotta Love (justly it appears) yet there is lots of indications that Dixon himself ripped off many of his fellow black artists back in the day because he was more educated and savvy. Probably nobody who ascended in the late 60's has truly clean hands.
The most egregious example of outright theft of IP by Led Zep is Dazed and Confused by Jake Holmes. This wasn't a lifting of a bit of lyric or a riff here or there. It was the complete song, title, music and lyrics that Zeppelin simply called their own on LedZep I.
With this latest lawsuit, if Plant stays true to his previous public comments on this topic and this song in particular (a song he has since come to despise) he will throw Page under the bus like he has previously "He was music, I was lyrics".
Last edited by PostandIn; 04-14-2016 at 10:10 AM.
Reason: Not 18 studio hours, 35.
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What about the entire vocal parts? Lyrics? The chorus and bridge at the end? None of that could have said to have been borrowed.
There is a progression of 5 chords that Stairway follows in it's intro/verses, except the Stairway version has a couple augmented ones whereas spirit doesn't, and it diverges from there. That progression has been used many times elsewhere as it's quite simple. The way the chords are picked are what make them sound similar, but regardless, 90% of Stairway is otherwise original content.
While perhaps the intro was could have been inspired by it, the two works don't mirror each other enough for Wolfe to be claiming that he deserves credit. Some iteration of that intro I guarantee has been used in classical songs probably hundreds of years prior. So that's baloney.
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While perhaps the intro was could have been inspired by it, the two works don't mirror each other enough for Wolfe to be claiming that he deserves credit.
FYI, this is the estate of Randy California (nee Wolfe) that is responsible for the lawsuit. He is dead.
What about the entire vocal parts? Lyrics? The chorus and bridge at the end? None of that could have said to have been borrowed.
There is a progression of 5 chords that Stairway follows in it's intro/verses, except the Stairway version has a couple augmented ones whereas spirit doesn't, and it diverges from there. That progression has been used many times elsewhere as it's quite simple. The way the chords are picked are what make them sound similar, but regardless, 90% of Stairway is otherwise original content.
While perhaps the intro was could have been inspired by it, the two works don't mirror each other enough for Wolfe to be claiming that he deserves credit. Some iteration of that intro I guarantee has been used in classical songs probably hundreds of years prior. So that's baloney.
Taurus is an instrumental so there can be no claim to the lyric obviously and I agree that any legitimate claim Wolfe may have is for a very small part of the overall song. That said, the progression in question is so similar and there are other bits of information that could be presented to a jury, like that archivists have dug up concert playbills with both Zeppelin and Spirit listed for the same show, it might be pretty easy for a jury to conclude that there was a short enough and bold enough line of exposure to Page to make an award. It doesn't help that Page has claimed never to have heard of Spirit or heard Taurus when that appears not to be the case. Regardless, it's a shame all this tawdriness surrounds such a majestic piece of music that contains what many believe is one of the best guitar solos ever recorded.
I think the Spirit claim is a bit minimal but Bert Jansch got robbed, guy taught Page how to play folk as well which made it worse!
Spoiler!
A little part of me dies every time I hear another song that LZ stole. Jimmy page will still remain my favourite guitarist of all time, imo, his body of work eclipses that of any other guitarist (Hendrix was definitely more talented, but Hendrix made music for 2.5 years, Page made it for 15 years).
My Mt Rushmore of rock guitar is Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen.
Led Zepplin Copyright Trial
