Posted on 08/16/2019 9:20:59 PM PDT by DoodleBob
According to NBC News, the Justice Department filed a friend of court brief late Thursday supporting LED ZEPPELIN in the "Stairway To Heaven" copyright lawsuit.
Last September, a federal appeals court decided unanimously to overturn a jury's decision that LED ZEPPELIN's 1971 classic was not a rip-off of SPIRIT's song.
Michael Skidmore, the trustee of "Taurus" songwriter Randy "California" Wolfe's estate, had brought the claims more than four decades after "Stairway To Heaven" appeared on LED ZEPPELIN's untitled album, better known as "Led Zeppelin IV".
In its brief filed Thursday, the Justice Department said the trial judge got it right when he ruled that the only work subject to copyright protection was the sheet music, because the song was written before Congress changed the law in 1972, which gave protection to sound recordings.
In June 2016, a Los Angeles jury deliberated for about five hours before deciding unanimously in favor of LED ZEPPELIN.
(Excerpt) Read more at blabbermouth.net ...
The main issue for me, however, is that Randy California never sued before his tragic death...if he didn't want to sue, then his estate suing is odd to say the least.
Besides, everyone knows Zeppelin's best song is Achilles Last Stand.
J S Bach was unavailable for comment.
I saw Spirit back in the 80s. Great band. 12 Dreams was a fabulous album.
L
But wait a minute. This can’t be! I thought the Trump Administration was a bunch of tight-asses who hated music and sided with those eeeeeevil record companies?
“I don’t see how anyone could rule for Zeppelin. “
The answer is in your OP.
Of course it’s an utter rip off.
This is based on a technicality, not that it’s not a rip off.
This guy does a good job of explaining it
I've read many comments and heard many people who try to explain it away...ya know, they were carrying on in that Blues tradition of borrowing, it's not an EXACT ripoff like Ghostbusters blah blah blah.
Zepelin has sold more albums than I will ever sell, they are world famous (probably famous on other plants, too) and John Bonham is arguably one of the most influential drummers ever. And as I said, Achilles is a masterpiece. But can't we just ONCE be honest and acknowledge the "crime" herein? It's not like they pulled a Milli Vanilli...but they did take someone else's idea without compensation.
Battle of Evermore, Going to California, Kashmir
“...but they did take someone else’s idea without compensation.”
A lot of them.
“Of course it’s an utter rip off.”
I had never heard of “Taurus” by Spirit so I checked it out on youtube. There are some similarities in the intro, but I don’t see it as a ripoff at all.
A walk down is a walk down. The way zep resolves it at the end is different from the way Spirit does it. They just leave it hanging.
Here’s my opinion of Led Zeppelin:
When asked if I had a time machine would I go back and kill baby Hitler, I say no....Jimmy Page.
Ooh, it really makes me wonder
Yes, I agree the melody in the two songs isn't exactly the same. But that isn't the point. If I launched a publication called "Breader's Digest" I'd likely be sued...it isn't enough to say "well, it's not EXACTLY 'Reader's Digest'....". That's as lame as Vanilla Ice's explanation of how he didn't rip off Queen and David Bowie.
So many of us believed their music was original. The joke was on us. lol
They just might’ve “borrowed” most of their music. The deeper you go, the more you find.
The Eagles rip-off of Jethro Tull’s “We Used to Know” for “Hotel California” was more blatant.
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