Led Zeppelin Wins "Stairway To Heaven" Copyright Lawsuit (Again) In Appeals Court

Led Zeppelin has once again come out victorious against Michael Skidmore, a trustee for the estate of former Spirit guitarist Randy Wolfe who claimed the famous rock band stole his melody from a 1968 instrumental, “Taurus”, and was used as a main melodic riffs in the band’s 1971 power ballad, “Stairway To Heaven”. A 2016 decision by a federal jury in the state of California initially acquitted Zeppelin of plagiarism, and on Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the original court’s decision of no copyright infringement, per The Hollywood Reporter.

News that Skidmore would appeal the 2016 decision was initially reported last summer after a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided that the jury in the original proceedings had been “improperly instructed about unprotectable music elements and originality.” The appeals court also had the task of determining whether the 2016 decision was a result of the jury being improperly instructed on “unprotectable music elements” and were “improperly instructed on originality.”

All three surviving members of Zeppelin, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones, wound up testifying in the initial proceedings, with Page even pleading ignorance during the trial.

Led Zeppelin – “Stairway to Heaven”

[Video: Led Zeppelin]

The Ninth Circuit has since determined it was not in error in the initial proceedings that the jury didn’t get to hear the original “Taurus” sound recording at trial.

“The world of copyright protection for music changed dramatically during the twentieth century and those changes dictate our analysis here,” Judge M. Margaret McKeown of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said with Monday’s decision. “Although Skidmore offers a host of reasons why adherence to the statute complicates proof in copyright cases, these arguments cannot overcome the statutory requirements.”

The recent case is also notable in the fact that the appeals court elected to not abide by the “inverse ratio rule,” which means the higher the degree of access to a work (in this case, the recording of “Starway to Heaven”), the lower the bar for proving substantial similarity.

“As a practical matter, the concept of ‘access’ is increasingly diluted in our digitally interconnected world,” McKeown continues. “Access is often proved by the wide dissemination of the copyrighted work. Given the ubiquity of ways to access media online, from YouTube to subscription services like Netflix and Spotify, access may be established by a trivial showing that the work is available on demand … The inverse ratio rule improperly dictates how the jury should reach its decision.”

Fans can read the court’s 54-page decision here.

[H/T The Hollywood Reporter]