Stairway to court: US judges order new trial against Led Zeppelin plagiarism | The music

A US court of appeal has ordered a new trial in a lawsuit accusing Led Zeppelin of copying an obscure 1960s instrumental for the introduction of his classic 1971 rock anthem, Stairway to Heaven.

Two years ago, a Los Angeles federal court jury had concluded that Led Zeppelin had not stolen the famous riff of the Spirit group's Taurus song.

But a panel of three judges of the 9th US Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled unanimously that the lower court judge had erroneously instructed the jury that misled jurors over essential copyright At the trial. He returned the case to court for another trial.

A telephone message left by Led Zeppelin's lawyer, Peter Anderson, was not immediately returned.

Michael Skidmore, administrator of the estate of the late guitarist Spirit, Randy Wolfe, filed a lawsuit against Led Zeppelin in 2015.

The jury handed down their verdict for Led Zeppelin after a five-day trial in which group members Jimmy Page and Robert Plant testified.

Page says that he wrote the music and Plant picked up the lyrics, stating that Stairway was an original. After several hours of often lively and amusing testimonials, they described the job behind one of rock's best-known songs.

The jury concluded that Stairway to Heaven and Taurus were not substantially similar, according to the decision of the Ninth Circuit. But he also stated that US District Judge Gary Klausner, Gary Klausner, had failed to tell the jurors that even though some elements of a song, such as his notes or his scale, might not to benefit from copyright protection, a combination of these elements may, if it is sufficiently original, judge Richard Paez said.

Wesley Lewis, a lawyer in charge of the copyright law at Haynes and Boone, said it was an important principle of copyright law. to encourage jurors to think differently about the case.

Klausner also wrongly told the jurors that the copyright did not protect the chromatic scales, arpeggios or short three-note sequences, revealed the panel of the ninth circuit.
"This is not a trivial mistake, because the testimony of Skidmore's expert that Led Zeppelin copied a color scale used in an original way," said Paez.

The panel also found another misleading jury instruction.

Francis Malofiy, a Skidmore lawyer, said in a statement that his client had faced "unfair decisions at the level of the trial court" and had declared himself "eager to see the challenge of a fair fight ".

"Today, we are proud that three jurors of the ninth circuit have recognized the battle we have fought and the injustice we have faced," he said.

During the trial, one of the issues raised was that the jurors could only listen to the expert interpretations of the score for Taurus, not the recorded version of the song performed by Spirit.

Steven Weinberg, a copyright lawyer who attended the trial, said the Taurus score was not faithful to the recording, so the jurors could not fairly compare the songs.

The ninth circuit in its decision on Friday stated that the jurors should have been allowed to listen to the recording to help establish that Page had "access" to Taurus, meaning that he would have done well. known.

Weinberg said that a new jury would now hear a recording of Taurus.

"I think this decision alone can potentially change the outcome of the next trial, because the jury will finally be able to compare" apples to apples, "he said.