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Led Zepplin Sued over Stairway to Heaven

M

Marc

Fleet Admiral
Premium Member
A judge in the U.S has allowed a case to proceed to trial over the claim that Led Zepplin's Starway to Heaven takes heavily from a track called Tarus relased in 1967 by a group called Spirit.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-...page-to-face-stairway-to-heaven-trial/7318612

The lawsuit is being brought by the trustee of the estate of Randy Wolfe aka Randy California who wrote Taurus.

Wolfe died in 1997 and a Trust was set up to provide music education as an after school program.

Given that Stairway is nearly 45 years old and Wolfe had 16 years to sue over it if he had felt it infringe, why the lawsuit now?

Probably the trust is running low on money and they are looking for a boost but I generally consider 3rd parties who go after copywrite who weren't the original artist are nothing more then bottom feeders who show how busted the copyright system is (happened with The Verve over Bittersuite Symphony and Men at Work with Downunder).
 
You're probably right about the motivation. Just plain greed. And it's obvious when it's so long after the song was written.

It is like that suit against Men At Work for the flute solo in Down Under something like 30 years after-the-fact.
 
Ohh, finger-picked guitar and a flute together, such musical theft. :rolleyes:

Seriously, though... there is supposed to be a three-year statute of limitations on copyright suits in the US. How does that come into play?

Kor
 
Ar-Pharazon said:
You're probably right about the motivation. Just plain greed. And it's obvious when it's so long after the song was written.

It is like that suit against Men At Work for the flute solo in Down Under something like 30 years after-the-fact.
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Pretty much - the song came out in 1981 and the band was sued in 2009.

The original composer didn't pass away until 1988 so the Kookaburra was still under her copyright but then bought by Larrakin Music after she died.
 
Kor said:
Ohh, finger-picked guitar and a flute together, such musical theft. :rolleyes:

Seriously, though... there is supposed to be a three-year statute of limitations on copyright suits in the US. How does that come into play?

Kor
Click to expand...

In this case not so much the guitar and flute together as the notes they play.

the Spirit song can be found at
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and there are some similarities between the music in the two song that can be heard at the 0:59 and 1:40 mark but but enough to justifiy a lawsuit? dunno especially as Taurus clocks in at 2:29, and Stairway at 8:00.
 
Marc said:
the lawyer leading the charge sounds like an ambulance chaser for some reason - probably because with the money earned from songs could lead to a big pay day if royalties had to be paid.
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Not exactly surprising to hear that. :lol:
 
Marc said:
Reads like it could be the same case and it's now moving forward after 2 years - oh and the lawyer leading the charge sounds like an ambulance chaser for some reason - probably because with the money earned from songs could lead to a big pay day if royalties had to be paid.
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I have to disagree. If an artists steals from another artist and goes on to make millions, then the original artist needs to be compensated for that work. We all know the infamous Vanilla Ice borrowing from Queen incident. And it does seem that Zeppelin has a history of "borrowing" from artists without compensating them.
 
I know of a case where a song that I'm familiar with has a very similar chorus to another older song by the Carpenters, to the point that I don't think it's a coincidence. Whether it's an homage or not, I don't know.
 
Mick said:
I have to disagree. If an artists steals from another artist and goes on to make millions, then the original artist needs to be compensated for that work. We all know the infamous Vanilla Ice borrowing from Queen incident. And it does seem that Zeppelin has a history of "borrowing" from artists without compensating them.
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Yes, but what about when the original artist is dead, and it looks like some third party is just trying to gain a profit decades after the fact?

I do recall that Led Zeppelin got in trouble a couple times for some of their early material ripping off blues artists. I'm not sure if the lawsuit in this thread is as clear-cut.

There are some cases where musicians or bands do homages/rip-offs/whatever of earlier works, and the original artists don't seem to mind. For instance, a couple of Beach Boys songs clearly re-work or incorporate Chuck Berry material.

And then there's the tradition of sampling in hip hop. But I digress...

Kor
 
I'm pretty musically illiterate and tone deaf but any slow guitar picking in a melancholic, minor chord (A minor, I believe) is going to sound very similar, isn't it? Are the notes the same but not played in the same order? In any case, there seems so much more value-added content by Led Zep in Stairway to Heaven than just that section. However, that argument probably wouldn't stand up in court and the band does have a track record for borrowing stuff as you say.
 
They're both starting on Am and descend THE BASS note. SWtH as the base note descends, he also goes up on the highest note. The descending progression is almost the same but with the rest of the chord is very different. The progression is also the same as some Bach as well as 30 or 40 other songs OLDER than Taurus.
 
The standards for two tunes being similar meaning copyright infringement need to be raised. A hundred years of people playing with simple melodies and guitar chords, of course some with sound similar.
 
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