Led Zeppelin lose Stairway lawsuit round 1

[jpd]

http://classicrock.teamrock.com/news...awsuit-round-1

[Dru Edwards]

It'll be interesting to see where this goes, especially given that they've been accused of stealing riffs before.

Not sure what it would mean if they are found guilty in Pennsylvania.

[jpd]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

It'll be interesting to see where this goes, especially given that they've been accused of stealing riffs before.

Not sure what it would mean if they are found guilty in Pennsylvania.

Martin will ban them.......................

[Random1643]

Yeah, they just might have a lawsuit. Altho they'll have to argue pretty Riff Specific.

Taurus and lawsuits aside, I loved Spirit when I was in high school. I Got a Line on You, Nature's Way. They had great energy.

[patrickgm60]

Whoa, there, Andes; lets not rush into this.

[coffeetime]

I hadn't heard of Spirit until the lawsuit came out. Sounds pretty similar to me, but I do love a bit of LZ so don't think I could ever have the sound 'soured' by any plagiarism

[Billy Shears]

I had the Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus on the turntable just a few nights ago. Great band.

[seannx]

The intro sounds pretty close to me. The only significant difference I hear is that the LZ version adds a couple of notes at the end, when the vocal goes "to Heaven." If you played the Spirit melody in a music store that had a bodily ejection policy for anyone playing Stairway to Heaven, you would certainly get picked up and thrown out. I don't think saying it was actually from "Taurus" by Spirit would change anything.

Here's the YouTube link:
http://youtu.be/zG3sQ8VPWuk
The riff starts at 0:45.

[HHP]

Some of this stuff gets a little silly. I might be surprised if Led Zeppelin was even aware of the records of Spirit at the time. There's also something that happens to everyone, you hear something, forget about it, and then it pops up in your playing later. Lawsuits to establish ownership of 40 year old guitar riffs strikes me as frivolous or goldigging.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by seannx

The intro sounds pretty close to me. The only significant difference I hear is that the LZ version adds a couple of notes at the end, when the vocal goes "to Heaven." If you played the Spirit melody in a music store that had a bodily ejection policy for anyone playing Stairway to Heaven, you would certainly get picked up and thrown out. I don't think saying it was actually from "Taurus" by Spirit would change anything.

Here's the YouTube link:
http://youtu.be/zG3sQ8VPWuk
The riff starts at 0:45.

i'll have to remember that line for the music store.

Originally Posted by HHP

Some of this stuff gets a little silly. I might be surprised if Led Zeppelin was even aware of the records of Spirit at the time. There's also something that happens to everyone, you hear something, forget about it, and then it pops up in your playing later. Lawsuits to establish ownership of 40 year old guitar riffs strikes me as frivolous or goldigging.

spirit and lz toured together prior to lz iv.

[mc1]

Originally Posted by Dru Edwards

It'll be interesting to see where this goes, especially given that they've been accused of stealing riffs before.

Not sure what it would mean if they are found guilty in Pennsylvania.

i think "accused" is putting it very nicely.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by HHP

Some of this stuff gets a little silly. I might be surprised if Led Zeppelin was even aware of the records of Spirit at the time. There's also something that happens to everyone, you hear something, forget about it, and then it pops up in your playing later. Lawsuits to establish ownership of 40 year old guitar riffs strikes me as frivolous or goldigging.

I agree except for a couple of points.
First the suit claims that both bands toured together prior to LZ releasing the song. So there is every reason to assume the possibility that Page heard the "Taurus" song prior writing Stairway.
Second it would seem that many would consider the potential for millions of dollars is not silly. Gold digging yes
The unfortunate result and award in the "Land Down Under" case no doubt has prompted this type of claim to surface.

[HHP]

Originally Posted by KevWind

I agree except for a couple of points.
First the suit claims that both bands toured together prior to LZ releasing the song. So there is every reason to assume the possibility that Page heard the song prior writing Stairway.
Second it would seem that many would not consider the potential for millions of dollars is not silly. Gold digging yes
The unfortunate result and award in the "Land Down Under" case no doubt has prompted this type of claim to surface.

When you come up with a phrase or riff in your own playing, do you always know for certain its not based on something you heard before? If the riff was so valuable, why didn't it make millions for Spirit?

The money is OK but I'm not sure I want credit for something that, today, gets you kicked out of guitar stores.

[Billy Shears]

Originally Posted by seannx

The intro sounds pretty close to me. The only significant difference I hear is that the LZ version adds a couple of notes at the end, when the vocal goes "to Heaven." If you played the Spirit melody in a music store that had a bodily ejection policy for anyone playing Stairway to Heaven, you would certainly get picked up and thrown out. I don't think saying it was actually from "Taurus" by Spirit would change anything.

Here's the YouTube link:
http://youtu.be/zG3sQ8VPWuk
The riff starts at 0:45.

Sounds pretty close to me as well. If George Harrison can be successfully sued for "My Sweet Lord" (sounded too much like "He's So Fine", for those not familiar with Harrison's case) I could see Zep losing this one.

[ewalling]

This is laughable. How can anyone possibly "steal" a blues riff?? Where did Spirit 'steal' it from, one wonders ...

The great thing about Zep is that they were able to convert hackneyed blues riffs into something huge.