Jimmy Page Testifies In Led Zeppelin Copyright Infringement Trial
The rock band Led Zeppelin is in the midst of a copyright trial over the song “Stairway to Heaven.” The group is being sued by the band Spirit, which accuses the group of stealing elements from their song “Taurus.”
Guitarist Jimmy Page testified Wednesday that he’d never heard “Taurus“ until a few years ago, “Something like that would stick in my mind. It was totally alien to me,” he said in court.
A lawyer for the estate of Spirit’s late guitarist, Randy California, argued the descending-chord guitar riff that begins 1971’s “Stairway” was taken from the song by Spirit, which was released a few years earlier.
It will be up to the eight-member jury of the federal court to decide if the two sequences are similar enough to be incriminating.
After the riffs from both songs were played by an acoustic guitarist in court earlier the same day Mark Andes, former member of Spirit, testified that they were the same.
Musical experts not involved in the case have said the sequence is common and has appeared in other pieces from decades and even centuries ago.
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