RichC2

Katy Perry won the appeal on Dark Horse as well: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...154136040.html

"That decision was overruled Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Christina A. Snyder, who ruled instead that the brief, eight-note musical phrase which Gray claims Perry stole was not original enough to be protected under copyright law."

bacigalup

From nypost.com:

Led Zeppelin Emerges Victorious in ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Plagiarism Case

British rock band Led Zeppelin on Monday effectively won a long-running legal battle over claims it stole the opening guitar riff from its signature 1971 song “Stairway to Heaven.”

The band, one of the best-selling rock acts of all time, was handed victory after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case, meaning that a March 2020 decision by a U.S. appeals court in Led Zeppelin’s favor will stand.

Lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had been accused in the six-year-long case of lifting the riff — one of the best-known openings in rock music — from a song called “Taurus”, written by the late Randy Wolfe of the U.S. band Spirit.

Wolfe, who performed as Randy California, drowned in 1997, and the case was brought by a trustee for his estate. It has been one of the music industry’s most closely watched copyright cases, potentially exposing Plant and Page to millions of dollars in damages.

Led Zeppelin was the opening act for Spirit on a U.S. tour in 1968, but Page testified in a 2016 jury trial in Los Angeles that he had not heard “Taurus” until recently.

The Los Angeles jury found the riff they were accused of stealing was not intrinsically similar to the opening chords of “Stairway to Heaven.”

Francis Malofiy, who represented Wolfe’s estate, said on Monday that Led Zeppelin “won on a technicality” and said that the lawsuit had accomplished its goal.

“Today, the world knows that: 1) Randy California wrote the introduction to ‘Stairway to Heaven’; 2) Led Zeppelin are the greatest art thieves of all time; and 3) Courts are as imperfect as rock stars,” Malofiy said in a statement.

Led Zeppelin has yet to comment on the conclusion of the case.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/05/led-ze...agiarism-case/

Decker

That's a dumb-ass statement to make. The jury found that Led Zeppelin didn't steal it. Sore loser.

DVD Josh

These guys must be best friends:

devilshalo

Bobby would like a word also...

Paff

I had long heard the criticism of Bow Wow Wow, in that they appropriated African songs, and then just changed the chants into nonsense English, thus resulting in songs like "Golly Golly Go Buddy!"

But I had no idea how deep the theft was.

Mahotella Queens from South Africa:

Bow Wow Wow

And they had the straight up balls to claim full credit for it

Nesbit

GoVegan

At least part of this one is fairly well known, but here are a few extra bits of the story.

Verve's Bittersweet Symphony:


bears a slight similarity to the Rolling Stones' Last Time:


I don't really hear it, but it's impossible to miss the resemblance to the Andrew Oldham Orchestra's version of Last Time:


The extended version of Bittersweet Symphony even includes the part with the bells in the middle of the orchestral version.

And then the final piece of the puzzle is that the Rolling Stones clearly were "inspired" by the Staple Singers: This May Be the Last Time:


"Maybe the last time, I don't know"

The Stones did finally give the songwriting credit back to Richard Ashcroft a few years ago, which I thought was great of them - I don't think they'd really had any involvement in the initial lawsuit. Their manager had publishing rights for their music, so he was the one who sued Verve and then sold Bittersweet Symphony to be used in seemingly every movie trailer and TV commercial for a few years.