A federal appeals court has restored a verdict that found Led Zeppelin did not steal one of their biggest hits "Stairway to Heaven."
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco landed in favor of guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant.
The estate of Randy Wolfe of the band Spirit claimed that the 1971 hit “Stairway to Heaven” violated the copyright of Spirit's 1968 song “Taurus.”
According to the original ruling from the 2016 trial, the jury heard the recording of “Taurus” and was given poor instructions before jurors found in favor of Page and Plant.
As reported by KTLA:
The composition of the two songs, not their recordings, were at issue in the case, but the plaintiffs had sought to play the two recordings for jurors as part of their argument that Page had access to the song “Taurus” as required to prove a copyright violation.
The attorney for the estate, Francis Malofiy, said that Led Zeppelin prevailed because of technicalities and judges’ misunderstanding of copyright law with their insistence that sheet-music transcriptions of the songs filed with the U.S. copyright office were the only relevant material, especially given that neither Page nor Wolfe even read music.
Read more about the ruling HERE.