This is not good news for Led Zep. The judge have sided with the band Spirit and allowed them to go ahead with the case over their claim that Led Zep ripped off one of their songs for “Stairway”. Even though this isn’t good news for Led Zep, I’m still interested in how this is gonna end. I don’t think Jimmy Page is gonna make a confession that he stole the song. Jimmy is gonna do whatever he can to defend himself.
I remember Led Zep lost their legal battle against blues legend, Willie Dixon. Could they lose against Spirit? I think no. I think Jimmy will prevail this time. That group Spirit is now gonna have to prove their case on how Led Zep stole their song which is gonna be difficult to do.
Led Zep have been accused of stealing songs from other bands & artists for years but who cares ya know? Many bands & artists steal stuff from others. Lots of the bands in the 60’s and 70’s have stole music — that includes The Beatles, The Stones, The Doors, The Who, Pink Floyd, The Allman Brothers, etc. I’m sure they all ripped off songs from others. It happens all the time in the music business and there is no outrage from the public when other bands do it. Why does Zeppelin have to be accused of it all the time?
On top of that, I wouldn’t really call it “stealing” or “ripping off” are the wrong words to put it. I would call it more like borrowing. You borrow riffs and song ideas for your own songwriting. You borrow riffs and licks from other artists ’cause you’re big fans of their work.
Sometimes it even happens by accident. When you write a riff or a guitar lick and it sounds exactly the same as someone else’s when you didn’t know that someone else had it. These things happen.
I think Spirit will get nowhere with this. If Zeppelin loses, that’ll be very sad since “Stairway” is an important piece of music history. That’s what happens when you become big and legendary, ya know? Other egotistical bands will get all jealous and they’ll try to accuse that band of plagiarism just to get more attention and more money.
I wish Jimmy Page the best of luck. He’ll probably be the one to be in trial for this one.
http://classicrock.teamrock.com/news/2014-10-20/led-zeppelin-lose-stairway-heaven-lawsuit-round-1
Kev