Disney and Michael Jackson estate settle documentary dispute

LOS ANGELES - Disney and Michael Jackson's estate have resolved a copyright dispute over a documentary about the late King of Pop that saw the Hollywood studio accused of breathtaking hypocrisy and aggressive tactics.

"The Last Days of Michael Jackson", a two-hour program that aired on Disney-owned ABC in 2018, was accused of using the pop star's songs, music videos, concert footage and clips of his memorial service without permission.

On Thursday, Jackson lawyer Howard Weitzman said in a statement to AFP: "The matter has been amicably resolved." No details of the settlement were provided.

The Jackson estate's lawyers alleged in a complaint filed last year that Disney had ignored copyright law while zealously prosecuting anyone who infringed on its own intellectual property.

"Unable to make a compelling presentation about Michael Jackson on its own, Disney decided to exploit the Jackson Estate's intellectual property," read the complaint.

Disney has argued that the documentary -- a broad overview of Jackson's life -- made fair use of content including parts of hits "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", as allowed under copyright law.

But the complaint noted that "Disney has threatened to sue independent childcare centers for having pictures of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck on their walls."

"Disney once sued a couple on public assistance for $1 million when they appeared at children's parties dressed as an orange tiger and a blue donkey. Apparently, those costumes cut too close to Tigger and Eeyore for Disney's tastes," it added.

Jackson is estimated to have sold 350 million records, including "Thriller", the best-selling album of all time.

He amassed 13 Grammy Awards, 13 number one solo singles in the United States and became the first artist in history to have a top ten single in the Billboard Hot 100 in five different decades.

He died in June 2009 at age 50, while he was in the Los Angeles area practicing for a planned series of concerts in London entitled "This Is It".

The cause was given as an overdose of the anesthetic propofol. His personal doctor, Conrad Murray, was convicted in 2011 for administering the fatal dose of medication to Jackson.

The Jackson estate this year filed a $100 million lawsuit against HBO for "posthumous character assassination" after its documentary "Leaving Neverland" alleged that Jackson molested young boys at his fairytale-themed ranch.

HBO has launched an appeal in its bid to dismiss the case.

In his lifetime, Jackson denied all child sex allegations.

amz/to

Agence France-Presse

How Taylor Swift dragged private equity into her fight over music rights

A little more than a week ago, a troubling alert appeared on the smartphone of an executive at the private equity giant the Carlyle Group: The firm had been invoked by Taylor Swift.

In an open letter posted to social media, the pop megastar had implored her fans to intervene in what might otherwise have been an obscure music industry dispute. The new owners of her former record company, she said, were trying to prevent her from playing her old hits at the American Music Awards on Sunday night. Swift asked her followers to tell Scooter Braun, the top music manager who now controlled her music catalog, how they felt. She added that she was “especially asking for help” from the Carlyle Group, which had backed Braun’s deal for the label, Big Machine.

After Swift’s post, her fans swarmed Braun — he has said that he and his family have received death threats — and the issue even became a high-profile political talking point, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez using it to attack private equity.

The public callout also got the attention of Carlyle, one of the world’s biggest private equity firms, which moved quickly to encourage a deal between the two sides and urged Braun to reach out to Swift, according to 4 people close to the situation.

Carlyle’s intervention — which people in both camps say has brought the bitter fight closer to a resolution — says as much about the zeitgeist as it does about private equity. At a time of public outrage over corporate greed and a heightened awareness of gender-based power dynamics, the 29-year-old Swift was able to turn a commercial dispute into a cause célèbre.

According to the 4 people close to the discussions, a deal could take various forms, including a partnership or joint-venture arrangement. But the artist’s ideal outcome — and probably the only one she will accept, according to her team — appears to be a sale that would give Swift possession of her master recordings from Big Machine. Such an agreement could well cost her hundreds of millions of dollars.

Ownership of her master recordings, and the copyrights associated with them, would put Swift in rare company. Relatively few major-label artists — among them Jay-Z, Metallica and Janet Jackson — have gained such control, since labels typically own those assets in exchange for the risks they take in financing artists’ careers. But Swift has made no secret of her desire to control her work, which became a crucial contract point when she signed a new deal last year with Universal Music Group.

The singer’s battle with Braun and his partners at Carlyle represents an unusually public collision between a superstar’s social media power and the status quo of the music business. It has also exposed the awkward fit between artists and private equity investors more accustomed to dealing with corporate boards at large industrial and consumer companies than with popular entertainment figures.

“People in private equity look at music copyrights and think, ‘It’s like real estate,’ but it’s not,” said Matt Pincus, the founder of Songs Music Publishing, which was sold in 2017. “You’re dealing with living, breathing artists.”

Carlyle bought into Beats Electronics, Dr. Dre’s headphones company, in 2013 and made an initial investment in 2017 in Ithaca Holdings, the entertainment holding company that Braun runs. With its headquarters in Washington and its past advisory arrangements with former heads of state like President George W. Bush and John Major, the former prime minister of Britain, the firm is in some ways a natural mediator in the Swift dispute.

But its portfolio managers, who tend to wear dark suits and skinny ties, were not used to dealing with sneaker- and leather-jacket-wearing musicians and managers for whom business is often personal. And then, there were the obsessive, protective fans known as Swifties. While social media heat can be directed at anyone, anytime, Carlyle was unhappy to be dragged into the dispute in such a public way, three of the people said.

Swift has long railed against what she considers injustices in the music business, including past disputes with Apple and Spotify. She first went public in June with her displeasure over the deal that brought Carlyle into the picture.

On June 30, Braun, who discovered Justin Bieber and has managed Ariana Grande and Kanye West, took over most of Swift’s music catalog as part of Ithaca’s purchase of Big Machine, an independent Nashville, Tennessee, label whose founder, Scott Borchetta, signed Swift as a 15-year-old country singer. Big Machine’s ownership of Swift’s first six albums — all of them multiplatinum hits — allows it to make money anytime that music is used, whether it’s streamed by a fan or placed in a Hollywood movie.

Ithaca paid $300 million to $350 million for Big Machine, according to two people briefed on its valuation at the time. But it also brought Swift into Braun’s orbit, stirring up heated feelings toward him largely because of his association with West, a longtime antagonist. The deal, she wrote on Tumblr, meant that Braun and Borchetta, who joined Ithaca’s board, would be in the position of “controlling a woman who didn’t want to be associated with them. In perpetuity.”

Carlyle’s stake in Ithaca was overseen by Jay W. Sammons, who runs the firm’s media, retail and consumer team. Carlyle added to its investment in Ithaca with the recent Big Machine deal. (It currently owns roughly a third of Ithaca, according to a person briefed on the size of the position.) And Sammons knew Carlyle was taking on exposure to an outspoken pop figure in Swift. But given the substantial value of her music catalog and the chance to invest in other Big Machine label artists, including Reba McEntire and Florida Georgia Line, he saw it as a compelling opportunity, a person familiar with his thinking said.

Soon after the deal was signed, Swift threatened in interviews to make new recordings of her old songs, potentially devaluing Braun’s investment in her original catalog. Braun and Borchetta accused Swift of bending the facts to fit a victim’s narrative, and said that she had rejected attempts to negotiate over the past six months.

Then, on Nov. 14, the pop star published another Tumblr post. Braun and Borchetta had essentially told Swift to “be a good little girl and shut up,” she wrote. The two men were imposing “tyrannical control” over her, she added, threatening to block her American Music Awards performance and refusing to license her music for a Netflix documentary in the works.

Swift’s note sent Swifties on a passionate mission to familiarize themselves with the Carlyle portfolio. Some shared clips from the socially conscious comedian Hasan Minhaj in which he discussed the company’s investments and its connection — through its ownership of the aerospace component manufacturer Wesco Aircraft Holdings, which supplies parts used to make a combat aircraft — to Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen.

“When you think about it, you either support Taylor Swift or the war in Yemen,” one fan wrote on Twitter, earning more than 3,700 retweets.

Sammons soon saw Swift’s post on his phone. Concerned by the turn things had taken, he rolled into action, according to two people familiar with his role, contacting Braun and others to see what could be done to assuage Swift — potentially even by selling her masters back to her. Shortly thereafter, both public and private overtures were made to Swift, inviting her to explore an outcome that would satisfy all parties.

On Friday, Braun used Instagram to publish his first public statement on the matter, urging Swift to consider her role in the threats facing his family. But he added that he hoped to “come together and try to find a resolution,” adding: “I’m open to ALL possibilities.”

Despite Braun’s open-minded public stance, he may be reluctant to sell. Big Machine is a crucial part of a larger strategy to expand the reach of Ithaca, which has investments in music publishing, artist management and even a film studio, Mythos. Big Machine would also help establish Braun, 38, as a mogul in the style of his hero, David Geffen, who controlled his own major record label and became a top Hollywood producer.

Private equity has long been a part of the financial backdrop of the music industry, with mixed results. Some deals have gone well; in 2013, for example, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts doubled its investment in BMG, the recorded music and publishing company, after five years.

Others have been disasters. Terra Firma Capital Partners paid about $8 billion for EMI in a highly leveraged deal in 2007, shortly before credit markets collapsed. The deal fell apart four years later, but by then Terra Firma had already alienated top artists with a tone-deaf approach to cost cutting. Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Radiohead and other stars fled the label, some with harsh words for its management.

Pincus, the music publisher who now advises a financial firm, put it this way: “The question of whether the power of a global superstar can wildly swing the asset value of music is hard to quantify in a spreadsheet.”


2019 The New York Times Company

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Journalists urge action against Google over EU copyright dispute

PARIS — Hundreds of journalists called Wednesday for European officials to take action against Google over its refusal to pay media companies for displaying their content in defiance of a strict new EU copyright law.

France was the first country to ratify the law, which was passed this year and comes into force on Thursday to ensure publishers are compensated when their work is displayed online.

But Google said last month that articles, pictures and videos would be shown in search results only if media firms consent to let the tech giant use it for free.

If they refuse, only a headline and a bare link to the content will appear, Google said, almost certainly resulting in a loss of visibility and potential ad revenue for the publisher.

Around 800 journalists as well as photographers, filmmakers and media CEOs signed an open letter published in newspapers across Europe urging governments to ensure that Google and other tech firms comply with the new EU rule.

"The law risks being stripped of all meaning before it even comes into force," the letter said, calling Google's move "a fresh insult to national and European sovereignty".

"The existing situation, in which Google enjoys most of the advertising revenue generated by the news that it rakes in without any payment, is untenable and has plunged the media into a crisis that is deepening each year," it said.

The presidents of the European Alliance of News Agencies and the European Newspaper Publishers' Association also signed the letter.

'CATASTROPHE' 

Google has countered that it benefits news publishers by sending more than 8 billion visits to their websites each month in Europe alone.

"We don't pay for links to be included in search results" because "it would undermine the trust of users," Richard Gingras, Google's vice president in charge of news, said in Paris last month.

But news publishers, including AFP, say such links to their websites are unable to help them cope with plummeting revenues as readers migrate online from traditional media outlets.

French President Emmanuel Macron has said Google will have to comply with the law, and the European Commission said it stands ready to assist member states, which must translate into domestic legislation by June 2021.

The new rules create so-called neighboring rights to ensure a form of copyright protection -- and compensation -- for media firms when their content is used on websites such as search engines or social media platforms.

"Now that disinformation campaigns are infecting the internet and social networks, and independent journalism is under attack in several countries within the European Union, surrendering would be a catastrophe," said the open letter.

"We call on the public decision-makers to fight back."

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Macron: Google can't escape copyright laws

Google cannot escape French law obliging the US online giant to pay royalties to media outlets for displaying their articles, pictures and videos in search results, French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday.

Google routinely shows extracts of news articles or small "thumbnail" images in its results and on Google News, without paying the publishers.

A new EU rule, which France is the first to implement, requires internet companies to pay for such content.

Google has baulked, saying it will not use the content in search results unless publishers make it available for free.

But Macron criticized Google's operations in France and Germany and said that "the desire of an operator today is not to pay the newspaper, not to pay the journalists". 

"A company, even a very large company, can not get away with it when it decides to operate in France," the French president insisted, during a visit to mark the centenary of the La Montagne newspaper in the city of Clermont-Ferrand in central France.

"We are going to start implementing the law," he said.

The new European legislation, which comes into force on October 24, seeks to ensure media firms are paid for original content displayed by Google, Facebook and other technology giants which dominate the online advertising market.

The new rules create "neighboring rights" to ensure a form of copyright protection -- and compensation -- for media firms when their content is used on websites such as search engines.

However on September 25, Google said it had no intention of paying European media outlets. 

"It's up to the publishers to decide how they promote their content," Richard Gingras, Google's vice president in charge of news, told journalists in Paris then, after meeting French Culture Minister Franck Riester. 

At Google, he added, "we don't pay for links to be included in search results" because "it would undermine the trust of users".

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Katy Perry, record label hit with $2.7 million copyright judgment

LOS ANGELES - A Christian rapper was awarded $2.7 million on Thursday by a Los Angeles jury that found that Katy Perry's 2013 hit "Dark Horse" contained a musical passage from one of his songs.

The verdict, reported by Los Angeles City News Service, followed a copyright trial in which Marcus Gray, known as Flame, said the beat in his song "Joyful Noise" was lifted and used in Perry's single.

The jury last week ruled that the short passage in the two songs was identical.

Perry, who was not in federal court for the damages decision, testified last month that she believed "Dark Horse" was an original work. The song was created by her producers and writers after she was presented with a series of short instrumental passages, the pop star testified.

Her attorney said she would appeal.

"The writers of `Dark Horse' consider this a travesty of justice," attorney Christine Lepera told reporters outside the court, City News reported.

"Dark Horse" brought in about $31 million for record label Capitol Records, a unit of Universal Music Group, attorneys for both sides agreed during the trial. Perry earned about $3.2 million.

On Thursday, Capitol Records was ordered to pay $1.2 million in damages to Gray, while Perry was ordered to pay $550,000. Producers and other collaborators on the song were told to pay the balance of the $2.7 million award.

Flame, 37, from St. Louis, Missouri, released his first album in 2004 and has had several hits on the Billboard gospel and Christian charts, but is little known outside of that genre.

Perry, 34, rose to fame in 2008 with the single "I Kissed a Girl" and went on to become one of the best-selling female pop stars in the world. She was also a judge for three seasons of the TV talent show "American Idol."

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Google fights European copyright overhaul

BRUSSELS -- Internet giant Google on Monday urged the European Parliament to resist approving a planned overhaul of the bloc's online copyright law that the company said would hurt Europe for "decades to come".

European lawmakers could vote as soon as next week on the landmark legislation that is intended to modernize copyright for the digital age but has set off a furious lobbying war in Brussels.

Tech giants, artistic creators and EU member states have battled for three years over the reform, with Google making a last-minute effort to dissuade MEPs from passing the law this month.

The biggest stumbling block has been a provision that calls for Google-owned YouTube and other platforms to remove illegal content using automatic filters, or face massive liability.

Despite certain benefits, this aspect of the reform "creates vague, untested requirements" that would lead to the websites "over-blocking content", said Kent Walker, Google's senior vice president of global affairs in a blog post.

"This would be bad for creators and users, who will see online services wrongly block content simply because they need to err on the side of caution and reduce legal risks," he added.

These "unintended consequences" may "hurt Europe's creative economy for decades to come," he added.

Another bone of contention is a provision to create "neighboring rights" -- that opponents call a link tax -- for media publishers.

News organisations, including AFP, have pushed for the move, arguing that giants like Facebook and Google make billions in revenue from advertising tied to news stories, while publishers suffer.

The planned reform "hurts small and emerging publishers, and limits consumer access to a diversity of news sources," said Walker.

"Under the directive, showing anything beyond mere facts, hyperlinks and 'individual words and very short extracts' would be restricted," he warned.

At first considered a formality, the outcome of the vote in the European Parliament is now highly uncertain.

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New Zealand's Supreme Court to hear Dotcom extradition appeal

WELLINGTON - New Zealand' highest court on Thursday said it would hear an appeal from Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who is attempting to overturn a lower court's ruling that he can be extradited to the United States to face racketeering and copyright charges.

The Supreme Court said it had jurisdiction over the appeal and granted leave for the case to proceed, according to a statement on the court's website.

The six-year legal saga is widely seen as a test for how far the United States can reach globally to apply American firms' intellectual property rights.

The Court of Appeal in July upheld a lower court ruling in 2017 that the extradition could take place.

U.S. authorities say Dotcom and three co-accused Megaupload executives cost film studios and record companies more than $500 million and generated more than $175 million in revenue by encouraging paying users to store and share copyrighted material.

"We are pleased that the New Zealand Supreme Court granted review of the U.S. extradition case against Kim Dotcom," said Dotcom's lawyer, Ira Rothken.

German-born Dotcom, who has New Zealand residency, became well known for his lavish lifestyle as much as his computer skills.

He used to post photographs of himself with cars and vanity licence plates such as "GOD" and "GUILTY", shooting an assault rifle and flying around the world in his private jet.

Dozens of black-clad police raided Dotcom's mansion in 2012, breaking him out of a safe room and confiscating millions of dollars in cash and property, including a fleet of luxury cars, computers and art work.

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EU court sends the KitKat case back to trademark office

LUXEMBOURG - A long-running legal battle between global chocolate giants over the shape of KitKat finger wafers was sent back to the EU's trademark office on Wednesday after judges dismissed appeals by both companies.

The ruling by the European Court of Justice means the EU Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) must review a 2012 decision to uphold Swiss-based Nestle's trademark on the shape of the four-finger chocolate-covered wafer biscuit over objections raised by Mondelez of the United States.

The Luxembourg court found that Nestle had failed to show that consumers in enough EU countries recognized the shape as distinctive but also dismissed an appeal by Mondelez against some of the grounds for a lower EU court ruling in 2016 that had found the EUIPO was wrong to reject the U.S. firm's complaint.

The outcome leaves open that the trademark agency could, while respecting the judges' ruling, take account of other evidence -- such as new proof the shape is distinctive to people in more countries -- and might preserve protection for KitKat's shape. The brand name "KitKat" is not at issue in the case.

Proceedings have been followed closely by trademark lawyers, who see implications for brands operating across the EU single market, where there are varying histories in national markets.

It has also at times featured in Britain's Brexit debate, with some supporters of cutting ties with the EU suggesting that EU courts have failed to defend a much-loved British treat first marketed by Rowntree's, which was bought by the Swiss in 1988.

In 2015, the Brexit-supporting Daily Express newspaper headlined a story on an earlier ruling: "End of the KitKat?". It said an EU "diktat" might "spell the end of" the wafer bars as the "market could now be flooded with copycat confectionery".

The case has also been mirrored by a dispute between the two multinationals in the British courts, where Nestle objected to a trademark for the purple color used by Cadbury, bought by the Americans in 2010, to wrap its Dairy Milk chocolate bars. (Reporting by Megan Dollar and Alastair Macdonald, editing by Louise Heavens)

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Spotify hit with new copyright suit in US

NEW YORK - A music publisher is seeking at least $1.6 billion from Spotify for alleged copyright violations, the latest lawsuit to hit the fast-growing streaming company.

Wixen Music Publishing, Inc -- which holds rights to songs of major artists including Neil Young, The Doors, Tom Petty and Santana -- charged in a lawsuit that Spotify failed to seek licenses for significant parts of its 30 million-song catalog.

"While Spotify has become a multibillion dollar company, songwriters and their publishers, such as Wixen, have not been able to fairly and rightfully share in Spotify's success, as Spotify has in many cases used their music without a license and without compensation," said the lawsuit filed last week in a federal court in Los Angeles.

The lawsuit said that Spotify initially tried to work with record labels but, "in a race to be first to market, made insufficient efforts to collect the required musical composition information."

Wixen, which is seeking a jury trial against the Swedish company, presented a list of 10,784 songs for which it questioned Spotify's permission to stream.

The publisher said it was seeking the maximum allowed $150,000 in damages for copyright damages for each song, meaning an award of at least $1.6 billion, along with the fees of its lawyers.

Spotify did not immediately comment on the latest suit. In May, it reached an agreement to settle a pair of two similar lawsuits under which Spotify said it would set up a $43.45 million fund to compensate songwriters.

Wixen called the settlement, which still needs final approval from a judge, "grossly insufficient" and said that it would opt out of the deal insofar as possible.

Even if unsuccessful, lawsuits amount to a headache for Spotify as the company considers going public.

Spotify, which has been valued at anywhere from $8 billion to $16 billion, has maintained its dominance as streaming rapidly grows and transforms the recorded music market.

Spotify said in July that it had 60 million users worldwide who pay for subscriptions, with 80 million more using its free tier.

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Paul McCartney sues to take back Beatles catalog

Paul McCartney on Wednesday filed a lawsuit to secure the copyright to the Beatles back catalog in a case that could have wide ramifications for the music industry.

The complicated dispute centers around the US Copyright Act of 1976 which aimed to address pop music's checkered history with artists by ensuring long-term rights for songwriters and their heirs.

Under the law, artists could reclaim copyright for songs 35 years after they gave them away -- or 56 years for tracks from before 1978.

But in a startling win for publishers, a British court in December refused to grant Duran Duran the US rights to the pop group's early hits -- such as "Rio" and the James Bond theme "A View to a Kill" -- on the grounds that the US act did not apply in Britain.

McCartney filed the lawsuit in a federal court in New York against Sony ATV Music Publishing, which was also involved in the Duran Duran case, in a bid to guarantee the transfer of copyright.

Next year will mark 56 years, the timeframe spelled out in the US Copyright Act, since the Beatles released their first single, "Love Me Do," in 1962.

The lawsuit said that the CEO of Sony ATV encountered McCartney's lawyer at a concert shortly before the Duran Duran decision and hinted that the publisher would fight harder in light of the British case.

The lawsuit said that McCartney had asked Sony ATV to make clear that it recognized the former Beatle's notices that he planned to terminate publishing contracts under the US law.

"Defendants have refused to provide such confirmation," the lawsuit said, voicing worry that Sony ATV would instead declare McCartney -- who wrote much of the Beatles catalog with the late John Lennon -- to be in breach of contract.

The case could have wide effects on the future of payments in the music industry. Publishers collect and distribute royalties to songwriters -- an especially lucrative area for classic tunes.

Sony ATV has rights to millions of songs including those by other top names in rock history including Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye and Bob Dylan.

Ironically, Jackson bought rights to Beatles songs after a leisurely chat with McCartney who explained the importance of music publishing.

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Led Zeppelin singer recounts how he composed 'Stairway'

LOS ANGELES -- Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant denied on Tuesday having stolen the opening of the rock group's iconic song "Stairway to Heaven," telling a jury he had written the anthem decades ago in the English countryside.

The 67-year-old musician told a Los Angeles federal court that the song at the center of a copyright case was clearly his work as well as that of Zeppelin guitarist-songwriter Jimmy Page.

The song was played to jurors as arguments wrapped up on Tuesday.

Plant testified that he wrote the lyrics more than 45 years ago while sitting by a fire at a recording and rehearsal venue in Britain.

He said he was inspired to write the lines after he heard Page play the opening notes of what would become one of the most famous rock songs of all time.

"That particular evening, I sat with Jimmy by the fire, and I had this first couplet that fit with what he was playing," he testified.

"I was really trying to bring the remote, pastoral Britain... the old, almost unspoken Celtic references into the piece," he added.

Asked by his attorney to remember what the couplet was, he sighed before reciting the famous lines.

"There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven," Plant said. "When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed with a word she can get what she came for."

The genesis of the song is a key element in the case as Page and Plant fight off accusations they stole the anthem's melancholy opening guitar arpeggio from "Taurus," the first album of long-defunct LA psychedelic rock band Spirit.


Page, 72, who testified when the trial opened last week, took the stand again on Tuesday, listening to 46-year-old recordings made at Headley Grange, the retreat used by the band in Britain, and explaining in detail to the jury the song's creation.

Substantial similarities

His attorney then played the entire near eight-minute finished version of the song to the jury before advising the judge that the defense had no more witnesses.

Closing arguments were set for Wednesday before the jury of four women and four men begin deliberations.

The five-day trial, which is being watched closely as it could potentially set an important precedent, has included testimony by musicologists who said there were substantial similarities between "Stairway" and "Taurus."

Spirit guitarist Randy California, who penned "Taurus," long maintained he deserved a songwriting credit for "Stairway" but never took legal action and drowned in Hawaii in 1997.

A lawsuit filed by his trustee and friend Michael Skidmore two years ago seeks damages and claims California deserves a songwriting credit so that he can "take his place as an author of rock's greatest song."

However, experts who testified on behalf of the defense in the trial said the chord pattern used in the intro to stairway was so "commonplace" that it couldn't be copyrighted.

Page testified last week that his chord progression had more in common with "Chim Chim Cher-ee," from the 1964 musical "Mary Poppins" than anything else.

At stake in the case are potentially millions of dollars in royalties collected in the three years prior to the filing of the suit through this month.

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 have submitted testimony that they never had substantive interaction with Spirit or listened to 1967's "Taurus" before recording "Stairway" in December 1970 and January 1971.

The lawsuit lists disputes over 16 other Led Zeppelin songs, many of which were settled by giving the complainant a songwriting credit and royalties, including classics "Whole Lotta Love" and "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You."

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Justin Bieber hit with 'Sorry' copyright suit

NEW YORK, United States - An indie pop singer has filed a copyright violation lawsuit against Justin Bieber, saying the superstar stole the distinctive vocal riff in his hit "Sorry" from her.

Casey Dienel -- who performs under the stage name White Hinterland and has won acclaim in indie music circles -- said she was entitled to "substantial" profits from Bieber's song, saying the amount should be determined at a jury trial.

"Ring the Bell," a track from White Hinterland's third album "Baby," released in early 2014, opens with a repeated four-note progression in her airy voice before synthesizers come in.

"Sorry," from the Canadian celebrity singer's album "Purpose," which came out in November, is also built on a repeated vocal riff interspersed with a dance beat.

"An ordinary lay listener would instantly recognize the sample and similarity between the songs," said the lawsuit filed this week in a federal court in Nashville.

The complaint alleges that the riff is so similar -- moving from the notes of B-flat to C to E-flat to F -- that Bieber's team took "Ring the Bell" as a sample and distorted it electronically without her permission.

Dienel said she repeatedly tried to contact Bieber's team to no response.

Bieber did not immediately comment on the lawsuit.

The suit also names Bieber's songwriters as defendants, including Skrillex, a leading electronic music producer.

Skrillex and Diplo, another prominent producer, helped Bieber craft a new tropical house sound for "Purpose," the third top-selling album in the United States last year.

Some fans interpreted "Sorry" -- with its refrain "Is it too late now to say I'm sorry?" -- as the former child star's apology of sorts for his past antics or a message to his ex-girlfriend, fellow singer Selena Gomez.

The 22-year-old has had a string of legal run-ins for incidents including throwing eggs at a neighbor's house, driving under the influence of alcohol without a license and allegedly assaulting a photographer.

The number of copyright cases against major musicians has been growing in recent months.

Last year, a Los Angeles jury ordered pop stars Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams to pay more than $7 million to the estate of the late Marvin Gaye over their hit song "Blurred Lines."

Dienel, who was raised in Massachusetts and lives in the indie rock capital of Portland, Oregon, was initially known for jazzy, piano-backed pop but has increasingly brought in electronic elements.

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