The civil trial accusing rock band legends Led Zeppelin stole a riff from another band when it wrote “Stairway to Heaven” began Wednesday, and the eventual ruling could have ramifications for future copyright enforcement.
Phoenix Tso of Reuters had the news of the opening arguments:
A musical riff Led Zeppelin is accused of stealing from another band for its 1971 classic “Stairway to Heaven” was not unique, singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page’s attorney said at a civil trial on Tuesday.
“No one owns common musical elements,” defense attorney Peter Anderson said in opening arguments for the copyright infringement trial in Los Angeles federal court.
The lawsuit, which alleges the British band stole the opening chords for “Stairway to Heaven” from the 1967 instrumental “Taurus” by the American band Spirit, was brought by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the late Randy Wolfe, Spirit’s guitarist and the composer of “Taurus.”
“Stairway to Heaven” is considered one of the most widely heard compositions in rock history and is the signature song of Led Zeppelin, which broke up in 1980.
The case comes just over a year after a federal jury in Los Angeles found recording stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams had plagiarized Motown great Marvin Gaye in creating their hit single “Blurred Lines,” and awarded Gaye’s family $7.4 million.
Joel Rubin and Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times explained the ramifications of the case:
A loss for Led Zeppelin could mean millions of dollars in royalties going to the estate of Spirit guitarist and songwriter Randy Craig Wolfe, aka Randy California, for one of the most recognized and played recordings of the rock era.
It’s the highest-profile infringement case to make it to the courtroom since last year’s suit in which R&B-soul singer Marvin Gaye’s family was awarded $7.4 million by a jury that decided pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ monster hit “Blurred Lines” had infringed on Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up.” A judge later reduced the award to $5.3 million.
The common ground between “Stairway to Heaven” and “Taurus” largely comes down to a 10-second musical theme that appears 45 seconds into “Taurus,” an instrumental from the band’s 1968 debut album, which is similar to the opening acoustic guitar pattern on “Stairway.” That song was released three years before “Stairway to Heaven” surfaced on Zeppelin’s untitled fourth album, commonly referred to as “Led Zeppelin IV.”
Sarah Grant of Rolling Stone reports about how the case is different than the “Blurred Lines” case:
The “Stairway” case is a little different than “Blurred Lines.” The composition of “Stairway to Heaven” includes the melody and the chord progressions heard in the “Taurus” clip. Led Zeppelin’s camp maintains that the song is rooted in musical traditions that go back thousands of years to Celtic folk music. The songs are similar because Spirit shared those musical touchstones, Led Zeppelin’s lawyers claim.
The all-art-comes-from-prior-art stance often leads to a cyclical argument in copyright cases: The Beach Boys ripped off Chuck Berry, the Rolling Stones ripped off Muddy Waters, and so on. “Bob Dylan copied a lot of things from Woody Guthrie, who copied a lot of from Mississippi bluesmen,” Sprigman says, but in his view, what Dylan produced was no less new than the works that inspired him.
“I hear all the time from the defense side that all music is based on something else,” attorney Richard Busch told RS. “But that is, like most generalizations, wrong.” The law doesn’t reward best work; the law protects original work. “[Infringement] is easily tested by the introduction of evidence by the defendant of prior art that the court can compare to the plaintiff’s work. Either the defendant can produce that or he cannot.” Busch, partner at Nashville firm King and Ballow, has argued hundreds of copyright suits. He won the landmark 2004 case where Funkadelic sued N.W.A for sampling a guitar riff. That decision set a legal precedent that all sampled music, however small the sample, must be licensed before use. This month, he argued the other side of copyright law, proving that “Vogue” by Madonna was not guilty of infringement. Busch also represented the Marvin Gaye family estate in the now-infamous “Blurred Lines” case. Creative morality is hugely important in copyright law, he says.
