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.

Page, acknowledged that he had three Spirit albums in his vast music collection but said he only found out about “Taurus” a few years ago after his son-in-law told him that comparisons to “Stairway“ were being made.

U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner ruled in April that evidence presented in hearings made a credible case that Led Zeppelin may have heard “Taurus“ performed before their song was created.

Zeppelin members John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and John Bonham are all expected to testify in the trial, though Jones has been dismissed as a defendant in the case.