Led Zeppelin Wins "Stairway to Heaven" Lawsuit

Led Zeppelin - Whole Lotta Love (1997 Promo)

A California jury has decided that Led Zeppelin did not lift "Stairway to Heaven"s" acoustic guitar riff from the band Spirit, whose instrumental composition "Taurus" bears similarity to the iconic rock song.

The plaintiffs argued that Zeppelin was familiar with Taurus"s work, having opened for them in December 1968. "Stairway" wasn"t released until 1971. But during testimony, the Associated Press reports, lead singer Robert Plant "cracked up the courtroom when [he] said he didn"t remember most people he had hung out with over the years."

The AP has more:

In trying to show the works were substantially similar, the trust had the tricky task of relying on sheet music because that"s what is filed with the U.S. Copyright Office.Jurors were not played the "Taurus" recording, which contains a section that sounds very similar to the instantly recognizable start of "Stairway." Instead, they were played guitar and piano renditions by musicians on both sides of the case. Not surprisingly, the plaintiff"s version on guitar sounded more like "Stairway" than the defense version on piano.Experts for both sides dissected both compositions, agreeing mainly that they shared a descending chord progression that dates back three centuries as a building block in lots of songs.

I wrote about that progression in April:

"Taurus" begins with 45 seconds of orchestral, almost cinematic music, dominated by foreboding strings and a brief appearance of jazz flute. Then begins 15 seconds of fingerpicked, classical guitar, with the bass notes descending chromatically (a half-step) from A to F (or A, G#, G, F#, F). The passage then repeats itself before the song moves to a different musical idea. It"s these 30 seconds that are the subject of the lawsuit, at least in terms of the technical composition of "Taurus" and "Stairway"."Stairway" includes the same chromatic descent. But a few bass notes do not a plagiarized song make. Although both tunes feature the same tone of spare, slowly paced guitar, Jimmy Page"s part builds in ways that the one in "Taurus" does not. The two guitars use the same chords, but they do not use the same composition.

The AP notes that guitarist Jimmy Page wanted to construct a song that would progress to a crescendo. It"s this evolution of "Stairway"in addition to "Stairway"s" riff being relatively more intricate and resolving to a different chord than the one in "Taurus"that makes the music distinct.

Copyright infringement has always been its own beat in the world of music journalism. Notably, the Spirit lawsuit was moved to the same court as the case involving Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams, and the estate of Marvin Gaye. The lines weren"t just blurred in that onethey were crossed, a jury decided.

Source: http://www.weeklystandard.com/led-zeppelin-wins-stairway-to-heaven-lawsuit/article/2002980