Music

Jury decides Led Zeppelin did not rip off 'Stairway to Heaven'

by Jesse Locke

The legal battle between Led Zeppelin and sadly overlooked soft-psych rockers Spirit has finally come to a close in favour of the former. After LA judge Gary Klausner decided in April that Spirit’s song “Taurus” had enough striking similarities to the intro of “Stairway to Heaven” that the decision must be brought to a jury, they have now ruled that songwriters Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are not guilty of plagiarism.

Both Page and Plant took the stand in the trial beginning on June 14th. “Bar-brawling” lawyer Francis Malofiy, representing the estate of Spirit’s late founder Randy “California” Wolfe, used some internet style punctuation when telling the court “This case is about copying. Give. Credit. Where. Credit. is Due.” He criticized the Led Zep founders for their “selective memory”, citing interviews from the early ’70s where they expressed their fandom of Spirit, including the fact that Page owned five of their albums.

In turn, Zeppelin’s lawyer Peter Anderson defended them by pointing out that Spirit’s song “Taurus” was absent from the setlist at a 1970 concert in Plant’s hometown of Birmingham. In fact, Plant wasn’t even in the crowd. Anderson also argued that it’s been almost 50 years since “Stairway” was released, so time washes away all memory of how their iconic song was written.

Page and Plant issued the following statement after the ruling:

[h/t Rolling Stone]