"Stairway to heaven" is finally Led Zeppelin's

 

The fight over “Stairway to heaven” is both storied and well documented. It is based upon the fact that the classic of classics, one of not only band Led Zeppelin’s but the entire Rock n’ roll genre’s most notorious anthems, is actually quite reminiscent of another song entitled “Taurus” and written by a band called Spirit. While Spirit hasn’t gone down in musical history quite like Led Zeppelin has (and perhaps that’s a key reason for the whole ordeal), there is a fact that has fascinated audiences and legal scholars alike for decades: Spirit actually toured with Led Zeppelin, performing “Taurus” in front of Jimmy Page around the time the legendary guitarist and songwriter was crafting his masterpiece…

Controversy over potential copyright infringement therefore started early — some might say around 1971, i.e. the year the song was released. And it only grew from there: the fact that Page has/had a habit of getting “inspired” by earlier work, usually Blues standards, did not exactly help his case. Over time, and as “Stairway to heaven” grew to become a bona fide cultural landmark, the story all but grew in intensity — and stakes. Eventually, in 2014, a formal lawsuit was initiated, as a general trend of copyright infringement actions picked up steam across the board (see: the 2015 trial over “Blurred lines” along the same lines, pun intended). A legal precedent known as “inverse ratio rule” helped that trend: essentially, it allowed lawyers to attack copyright holders on the basis of direct access to the source material. In other words, the fact that Jimmy Page hung around Spirit gave weight to the possibility that he had stolen some of their intellectual property, willingly or otherwise.

That 2014 lawsuit got dismissed two years later, then revived, then dismissed again earlier this year. Today, the US Supreme Court declined to pick the case up, effectively ending the legal battle surrounding the song. Probably giving a bit of relief not only to Jimmy Page, but to many other artists whose work was being increasingly scrutinized with decreasing basis. Whether or not Page was indeed influenced, one way or other, by a song he may or may not have heard way back when turns out to be more of a philosophical or psychological question than a legal one, and that’s just as well…