Led Zeppelin have finally walked away from their court battle over the copyright of ‘Stairway To Heaven’ as winners, with the US Supreme Court declining to hear the case.
First reported by Consequence Of Sound, the case in question officially went to trial all the way back in 2016, after attorneys representing the estate of Spirit founder Randy California accused Led Zeppelin of ripping off their track ‘Taurus’, recorded four years before the release of ‘Stairway’.
In June of that year, a jury cleared Led Zeppelin of any wrongdoing, but then that was later overturned on the grounds that the jury weren’t given enough instruction or clarity on what defines “originality” in music.
However, the whole saga has now finally wrapped up, with the US Supreme Court saying no to re-hearing the case, instead backing a March 2020 lower court decision that said the band’s classic hit did not rip off ‘Taurus’.
According to the legal eagles at Bloomberg, the legal wrangling has now been exhausted, which means the controversy can finally be put to bed and ‘Stairway to Heaven’ is now 100% legally Led Zeppelin’s intellectual property.
For the record, guitarist Jimmy Page once acknowledged that Spirit may have influenced his writing of the song, but dubbed the accusations of plagiarism “ridiculous”.
Listen to the two tracks side by side, below.
