Clean chit: Led Zeppelin did not steal

US court exonerates band in ‘Stairway to Heaven’ plagiarism trial

LOS ANGELES: A US jury found that British rock group Led Zeppelin did not steal the intro to their signature track Stairway to Heaven from a long-defunct Los Angeles rock band.

The jury in federal court in Los Angeles rejected claims by songwriting duo Robert Plant and Jimmy Page that they had no access to Taurus, by the 1960s psychedelic five-piece Spirit.

But the panel of four men and four women said there was no proof that the two songs were sufficiently similar for Spirit’s copyright to have been breached.

Front man Plant and guitarist Page denied plagiarising the melancholic guitar progression of their classic 1971 song from Taurus, an instrumental track from Spirit’s debut album, written four years earlier.

Both men, who attended every day of testimony in sober dark suits, hair tied back in ponytails, remained expressionless as they were exonerated.

Dressed more flamboyantly for the verdict in blue jeans, a black shirt and jacket and a red tie, Plant, 67, and his 72-year-old band mate circulated a written statement noting the jury’s “conscientious service”.

They thanked the panel for “putting to rest questions about the origins of Stairway to Heaven and confirming what we have known for 45 years”.

The jury came to its unanimous verdict shortly after Judge Gary Klausner had agreed to their request to hear acoustic guitar renditions of Taurus and Stairway played side-by-side for a final time.

It was the culmination of a seven-day trial in the case brought by Michael Skidmore, the trustee and friend of Spirit guitarist Randy California, who long maintained he deserved credit for Stairway but drowned in 1997, having never taken legal action over the song.

Skidmore’s attorney Francis Malofiy told reporters the plaintiff and his team were “disappointed and upset”.

He criticised the court’s decision to allow the jury to hear only acoustic renditions of the disputed parts of the songs, rather than the original recordings.

“We have to respect the jury’s decision in light of the evidence shown. We proved access but the jury never heard what [Plant and Page] had access to,” he said.

Asked if Skidmore would consider appealing, Malofiy said his legal team would take decisions on any future action “one step at a time”.

The suit, filed by Skidmore two years ago, sought damages and claimed California deserved a songwriting credit so that he could take his place as an author of rock’s greatest song.

“Give credit where credit is due. This case has always been about credit,” Malofiy said as he presented his closing arguments.

The lawsuit comes amid a rise in such copyright cases, with the family of Marvin Gaye last year controversially winning more than $7 million from a jury over the song Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams.

Stairway is estimated to have grossed $3.4 million during the five-year period at issue in the civil trial, dating back to 2011, although Skidmore’s legal team was asking for damages of up to $13.5 million.

Experts estimate that the lawsuit may have cost California’s trust up to $1 million.

Zeppelin opened for Spirit when the hard rockers, Plant, Page, John Paul Jones and the late John Bonham, made their US debut on December 26, 1968 in Denver.

But the surviving members testified that they never had substantive interaction with Spirit or listened to 1967’s Taurus before recording Stairway in December 1970 and January 1971.

Experts called by the plaintiffs said there were substantial similarities between key parts of the two songs, but defense witnesses testified that the chord pattern used in the intro to Stairway was so commonplace that copyright didn’t apply.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 25^th, 2016.

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