Jury's out: Led Zeppelin Didn't Steal Iconic Stairway To Heaven Chord Progression

26 June 2016 | 9:18 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

Thank God! It’s finally official and people can stop bitching; Led Zeppelin did not steal the iconic 'Stairway To Heaven' chord progression.

Thank God! It’s finally official and people can stop bitching; Led Zeppelin did not steal the iconic 'Stairway To Heaven' chord progression.

This most recent case of musical theft was no small-time affair as it was for millions of dollars, so you better believe that the jury had a hard task to see whether Led Zeppelin had been musical thieves of sorts. This case was originally brought to the attention of the Los Angeles federal jury by the remaining member of Spirit, Randy Wolfe, claiming that the classic Zeppelin tune was a rip-off of Spirit's instrumental song, ‘Taurus’.

However, as the title of this posts tells, the band has not been found guilty of plagiarism. Guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant shared this statement following the conclusion of the two-year long trial:

“We are grateful for the jury's conscientious service and pleased that it has ruled in our favour, putting to rest questions about the origins of 'Stairway to Heaven' and confirming what we have known for 45 years. We appreciate our fans' support and look forward to putting this legal matter behind us."

Speaking with ARS Technica William Hochberg  of Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP, an intellectual property attorney in Los Angeles, had something very interesting to say about this case, commenting:

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"I think the jury understood that Randy California didn't invent the A minor chord with a descending bass line. In music, as in all creative pursuits, the successful ones stand on the shoulders of giants before them. If our legal system uniformly banned this age-old process of using basic building blocks from the past, our copyright law is misused and the public suffers a creativity drought."

Even though we now have an answer on the trail, tell us what you think about the similarities of the songs below.