Newsflash – Zep wins Stairway to Heaven Trial!!

Written by Jim S.

Wow! Given their history of being sued, their familiarity with Spirit and how much these songs sounded so alike, I thought for sure these guys were going down. Truthfully, I’m glad I was wrong. Link below:

Zep wins Stairway trial

4 thoughts on “Newsflash – Zep wins Stairway to Heaven Trial!!”

  1. Interesting. I think there’s an inherent problem with these music plagiarism trials. You can’t copyright the natural scientific process of playing music notes…

    Both songs feature descending bass notes and happen to be in the same key. If Jimmy Page had just put a capo on the first fret, nobody would be having this debate most likely 😀

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    1. Fair enough. But let me here play prosecuting attorney. Exhibit A: Google Led Zeppelin plagiarism. One guy has a 10-minute YouTube video on this topic alone. For just one example, Page put his name on Jake Holmes’ “Dazed and Confused.” The song credit now reads Page, inspired by Holmes. And they settled out of court. This one is not subtle – it’s blatant.

      Exhibit B: Zep toured with Spirit, likely heard the song (came out three years prior to Stairway) and Pagey “can’t explain’ why there are five Spirit albums in his collection.

      And then if I listen to the two songs back-to-back, well, I just hear it. Hey, I love Zep as much as anybody. And I totally get that plagiarism is a slippery slope, that Spirit didn’t invent that progression and all that. But given Zep’s track record, and their history with Spirit, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have sided with Randy Wolfe’s estate.

      So to put it another way, if Pagey had offered Wolfe writer’s credit up front, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. 😀

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  2. Actually, now that I think of it: Taurus sounds more like Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle than Stairway.

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    1. In the trial they actually cited ‘Chim Chim Cheree’ from Mary Poppins. BTW, now that that progression is up for grabs, I am definitely writing a song using as much of it as I can. Title? Hairway to Steven. 😀

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