Led Zeppelin must face new trial claiming it stole 'Stairway' riff

Led Zeppelin was ordered by a US appeals court to face a new trial over whether it stole the opening guitar riff for its 1971 anthem "Stairway to Heaven" from an obscure instrumental written four years earlier.

In a 3-0 decision on Friday, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco threw out a June 2016 verdict in the rock band's favor, citing a series of errors by the trial judge.

The decision revives one of the music industry's most closely-watched copyright cases, potentially exposing Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page to millions of dollars of damages.

Lawyers for the defendants had no immediate comment.

The lawsuit had been filed by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the songs of Randy Wolfe, a guitarist for the band Spirit.

Skidmore accused Plant, 70, and Page, 74, of stealing the iconic opening to "Stairway" from the Spirit song "Taurus."

He said the songs had similar chord progressions, and that Page may have written "Stairway" after hearing "Taurus" while Led Zeppelin and Spirit were touring together.

Wolfe, who performed as Randy California, had complained in interviews about the songs' similarities, but did not sue prior to his death by drowning in 1997.

Jurors determined that while Plant and Page, who testified at the trial, had access to "Taurus," the song's riff was not intrinsically similar to the opening of "Stairway."

But in Friday's decision, Circuit Judge Richard Paez said the trial judge erred in failing to instruct jurors that the trustee could prevail if Wolfe had created a "sufficiently original combination" of otherwise unprotectable music elements.

Paez also said the judge erred in instructing jurors about the copyrighting of music elements in the public domain, and should have let them listen to "Taurus" while Page testified, to assess his demeanor and help determine whether he had access.

"We do not dispute that Led Zeppelin is one of the greatest bands in history, but their plagiarism indelibly stains their legacy," Skidmore's lawyer Francis Malofiy said in an email.

“Led Zeppelin obviously copied 'Taurus' by Randy California, a musician they knew well," he added.

The case was returned to U.S. District Judge Gary Klausner in Los Angeles.

Friday's decision followed a March 21 copyright ruling by another 9th Circuit panel upholding a $5.3 million judgment to Marvin Gaye's children. They accused Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams of creating the 2013 smash "Blurred Lines" by copying Gaye's 1977 song "Got to Give It Up."

The case is Skidmore v Led Zeppelin et al, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 16-56057. 

-reuters-

Led Zeppelin owes millions in royalties to musician: plaintiff attorney

Led Zeppelin may owe an American musician millions of dollars in royalties, a plaintiff's attorney said on Wednesday in closing arguments of a trial over whether the British band stole the opening riff for its 1971 hit "Stairway to Heaven."

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, in testimony earlier in the seven-day copyright infringement trial, said the riff was commonly used long before its appearance on American band Spirit's 1967 song "Taurus" and before "Stairway to Heaven."

Lawyer Francis Malofiy, who represents a trustee for late Spirit musician Randy Wolfe, also known as Randy California, told jurors in US District Court in Los Angeles that Page did not say how he was inspired to compose the opening chords of the chart-topping song, which has a place in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

"He didn't tell you where he got the idea," Malofiy said. "That's because the piece of music was lifted from 'Taurus' and Randy California."

Malofiy said he was seeking a one-third writing credit on "Stairway to Heaven" for Wolfe and presented various estimated valuations of damages ranging from $3 million to $30 million.

The federal trial has called into question the originality of the signature song of one of the top-selling rock acts of all time.

Peter Anderson, an attorney for the band, repeated to jurors his argument that the riff that opens "Stairway to Heaven," a chromatic descending arpeggiated line that misses the 'E' note, was in the public domain and had been widely used.

"Randy Wolfe did not create the descending chromatic scale," Anderson told jurors.

Anderson also questioned the damage figures sought by Malofiy, telling jurors that even if they decide Wolfe deserves a writing credit, they would have to determine the value of a riff that only forms part of "Stairway to Heaven."

The lawsuit was brought in 2014 by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for Wolfe. The musician drowned in 1997.

Earlier in the trial, Skidmore's lawyers simultaneously showed the jury two video clips of expert Kevin Hanson playing the riff in both songs. Hanson said the two clips "play together as one piece of music. It is not discordant."

Led Zeppelin's attorneys brought in music expert Lawrence Ferrara, who testified that the "descending chromatic minor line progression" in question at the trial was used 300 years ago, as well as in many pop songs since.

(Writing by Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Peter Cooney)

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

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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Led Zeppelin is back with 'whole lotta' unreleased tunes

LONDON -- Legendary rockers Led Zeppelin said on Wednesday they will include previously unreleased songs in the first batch of reissues of their nine studio albums, including a version of their pulsating "Whole Lotta Love."

The reissues, remastered by guitarist Jimmy Page, will be launched on June 3 with deluxe editions of "Led Zeppelin," "Led Zeppelin II" and "Led Zeppelin III." Each album will include a second disc of unreleased music related to that album.

"The material on the companion discs presents a portal to the time of the recording of Led Zeppelin," Page is quoted as saying in a statement from the band.

"It is a selection of work in progress with rough mixes, backing tracks, alternate versions, and new material recorded at the time."

The companion audio for the band's 1969 debut album "Led Zeppelin" features a previously unreleased performance recorded in October of that year at the Olympia Theater in Paris. The nine-song set features seven tracks from the album, including a 15-minute version of "Dazed And Confused."

"Led Zeppelin II" features some of the band's most famous tracks including "Ramble On" and "Heartbreaker" as well as "Whole Lotta Love," a fixture in the pantheon of classic rock 'n' roll songs.

Its companion audio contains alternate mixes of five songs from the album, including "Whole Lotta Love," plus backing tracks to "Thank You" and "Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Woman)," and the previously unreleased track "La La."

The nine tracks featured on the companion audio to "Led Zeppelin III" include outtakes of songs from the album as well as three previously unheard compositions: "Jennings Farm Blues," "Bathroom Sound" and the band's take on the blues classics "Keys To The Highway/Trouble In Mind."

Led Zeppelin was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1995, received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 and a year later was awarded the Polar Music Prize in Stockholm.

Founding members John Paul Jones, Page and Robert Plant - along with Jason Bonham, the son of drummer John Bonham, who died in 1980, the year the band broke up - gave a tribute concert at London's O2 Arena in 2007 for the late Ahmet Ertegun, founder of the band's label, Atlantic.

Band members have since discounted the prospect of another reunion.

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Obama salutes entertainers taking a Washington bow

WASHINGTON - Music legend Led Zeppelin was recognized on Sunday alongside entertainers from stage and screen for their contributions to the arts and American culture at the Kennedy Center Honors, lifetime achievement awards for performing artists.

The eclectic tribute in Washington, alternated between solemn veneration and lighthearted roasting of honorees Academy Award-winning actor Dustin Hoffman, wisecracking late-night talk show host David Letterman, blues guitar icon Buddy Guy, ballerina Natalia Makarova and Led Zeppelin.

"I worked with the speechwriters - there is no smooth transition from ballet to Led Zeppelin," President Barack Obama deadpanned while introducing the honorees in a ceremony in the White House East Room.

Friends, contemporaries and a new generation of artists influenced by the honorees took the stage in tribute.

"Dustin Hoffman is a pain the ass," actor Robert DeNiro said in introducing Hoffman, the infamously perfectionist star of such celebrated films as "The Graduate" and "Tootsie."

"And he inspired me to be a bit of a pain in the ass too," DeNiro said with a big smile.

At a weekend dinner for the winners at the State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton noted that the performing arts often requires a touch of diplomacy as she toasted Makarova, a dance icon in the former Soviet Union when she defected in 1970.

Tiler Peck of the New York City Ballet, who performed in "Other Dances," one of Makarova's signature roles, said she has studied her idol's technique for years.

"This is a role she created," Peck said.

Despite the president's misgivings about his own speech, the performance at the Kennedy Center navigated the transition from refined ballet to gritty blues music when the spotlight turned to Guy, a sharecropper's son who made his first instrument with wire scrounged from around his family's home in rural Louisiana.

"He's one of the most idiosyncratic and passionate blues greats, and there are not many left of that original generation...," said Bonnie Raitt, who as an 18-year-old blues songstress was often the warm-up act for Guy.

George "Buddy" Guy, 76, was a pioneer in the Chicago blues style that pushed the sound of electrically amped guitar to the forefront of the music.

"You mastered the soul of gut bucket," actor Morgan Freeman told the Kennedy Center audience. "You made a bridge from roots to rock 'n roll."

In a toast on Saturday night, former President Bill Clinton talked of Guy's impoverished upbringing and how he improvised a guitar from the strands of a porch screen, paint can and his mother's hair pins.

"In Buddy's immortal phrase, the blues is 'Something you play because you have it. And when you play it, you lose it.'"

It was a version of the blues that drifted over the Atlantic to Britain and came back in the finger-rattling rock sound of Led Zeppelin.

Jimmy Page, 68, was the guitar impresario who anchored the compositions with vocalist Robert Plant, 64, howling and screeching out the soul. Bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, 66, rounded out the band with drummer John Bonham, who died in 1980.

The incongruity of the famously hard-partying rock stars sitting in black tie under chandeliers at a White House ceremony was not lost on Obama.

"Of course, these guys also redefined the rock and roll lifestyle," the president said, to laughter and sheepish looks from the band members.

"So it's fitting that we're doing this in a room with windows that are about three inches thick - and Secret Service all around," Obama said. "So, guys, just settle down."

The gala will be aired on CBS television on December 26.

source: abs-cbnnews.com