The lawsuit was originally filed in May of 2014 by Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the estate of Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe (aka Randy California), claiming Zeppelin stole the classic guitar line that begins their monster hit.
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The plaintiff needs to show that Page and Plant would have had some familiarity with the work.
The jury stated that it is of course possible that the group had heard that song, their certainly would have been access to it. However, the jury did not get to hear the two songs side by side and relied exclusively on the sheet music. Do the two compositions sound similar? They reportedly played snooker with Spirit afterwards.
Experts for the plaintiff pointed to a $60 million music publishing deal that Page and Plant signed with Warner Music and suggested that a large portion of that could be attributed to “Stairway”.
Plant cracked up the courtroom when said he didn’t remember most people he had hung out with over the years.
Jurors were asked to compare the sheet music for “Taurus” to Led Zeppelin’s song, and listened to guitar and piano renditions of the tracks by music experts, but they never got to actually hear both songs. “45 years later for the delay you caused?” The epic ballad was released three years later.
Stairway is estimated to have grossed $US3.4 million ($4.5 million) during the five-year period at issue in the civil trial, although Mr Skidmore’s legal team was asking for damages of up to $US13.5 million ($17.8 million).
Led Zeppelin bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones also took the stand during the trial. The prosecution said the English rock band became familiar with Spirit’s song when the two bands played on the same bill in Plant’s hometown in 1970.
“Led Zeppelin is one of the greatest bands in history, and Jimmy Page and Robert Plant are peerless songwriters who created many of rock’s most influential and enduring songs”.
Page, 72, bobbed his head and moved to the tune while Plant, 67, sat still.
The rock stars didn’t chat with fans in the gallery and they were accompanied everywhere by bodyguards. One afternoon, a group of women clapped and Page flashed a smile as they crossed the courthouse corridor.
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In 1968 Spirit released Taurus, an instrumental track that bears a marked resemblance to the opening of Stairway to Heaven.
