Led Zeppelin Prevail!

The verdict is in:  Led Zeppelin did NOT rip off Spirit!  The jury in Michael Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin, et al, Case # CV15-3462, US District Court, Central District of (Randy) California, ruled that “Taurus” (a brief instrumental) is not significantly similar to “Stairway To Heaven”, a longer song most of us know well.  Bravo.  Subjectively, that was my opinion.  As a lawyer AND a Led Zeppelin fan, I paid attention to this case, even to the point of downloading the court’s decision denying the band’s preliminary motion to dismiss. 

Spirit.  I actually do like this band, and I have their first four albums, Spirit, The Family That Plays Together, Clear, and The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.  “Taurus” is from the first, self-titled album, as is “Fresh Garbage”.   I don’t really consider both bands the same, though they are both very eclectic in their songs.  Spirit is decent quality rock music of that era, and worth listening to in their own right.  Equals to Zeppelin?  Not in popularity, certainly, but I say not in quality either.  But since Zeppelin is already such an excellent band, that’s like saying someone is “not as rich as Bill Gates”. 

The main “character” is guitarist Randy Wolfe, better known as Randy California.  He’s an excellent guitarist in his own right, even if he looks like Ben Stiller portraying a 70s rock guitarist. He died in 1997.  During his lifetime he made conflicting noises about whether he considered “Stairway To Heaven” a ripoff of “Taurus”; in any case he made no legal efforts in his lifetime.

Statute of Limitations.  Nominally the standard passed ages ago since Led Zeppelin IV was released back in 1971.  But when the band remastered the albums and re-released them, that reset the statute, notwithstanding the decades that passed AND California’s earlier failure to bring suit.  Of course, Zeppelin had competent counsel and tried to kill the case on these procedural grounds long ago – and failed. 

Voir Dire.  I would have loved to attend the trial in person, though it was not an option – I don’t live anywhere near L.A. At the least I would have enjoyed seeing the voir dire – picking the jury.  Naturally anyone showing up for jury duty wearing a Led Zeppelin t-shirt or a Spirit t-shirt (do they exist?) would have been stricken for cause.  I suppose a LZ fan could have sandbagged and pretended not to know – the same with stealth Spirit fans.  I’d have been disqualified as an attorney, but I suppose I could have persuaded both attorneys, Malofiy (Plaintiff/Spirit) and Anderson (Defendant/Led Zeppelin), that I could be objective and make a decision.  “I have both Spirit and Led Zeppelin IV.  Let them persuade me.”

Attitude.  From what I could tell, Page and Plant acted fairly flippant and arrogant during the trial.  I was concerned this would turn off the jury.  And let’s face it:  Zeppelin did in fact rip off many other artists during their early days.  I also found their convenient memory lapses to be implausible.  Since they toured with Spirit and were familiar with their material, even covering “Fresh Garbage”, from the same album as “Taurus”, their denials of familiarity with that song sounded highly insincere.  A band with a known track record for blatantly expropriating other bands’ material, who toured WITH Spirit?  Sorry, that doesn’t compute.  And unlike Led Zeppelin, no one has sued Black Sabbath or Deep Purple; those bands were far more original than Led Zeppelin. 

Taurus vs. Stairway to Heaven.  This is why reading the court documents were important.  My subjective impression was, “sure, the intro is very similar, but ‘Stairway’ has lyrics, a much larger middle section, a solo, and an outro.   Much as I hate Robert Plant, his lyrics are great (if somewhat pretentious) and his vocals are stunning.  Overall the song is EPIC.” This alone should be sufficient to put the case away.  Not so fast.  The Court cited the standard, which in part says that “even if a copied portion be relatively small in proportion to the entire work, if qualitatively important, the finder of fact may properly find substantial similarity.”  Thus even the small intro to a larger song could be “substantially similar” and meet the standard; thus a jury could go either way.  This case had to be tried on the facts.  Moreover, it was the music itself at issue, not the recordings, so the jury was not played the actual recordings of the songs.  Be that as it may, in my humble opinion, and apparently the jury agreed, the acoustic descending chord progression of “Taurus” was not qualitatively important enough to merit a finding of substantial similarity. 

Aftermath.   I suppose Skidmore & Malofiy can appeal.  Even if they had won, the verdict would have been for 50% of Wolfe’s share of the royalties of Led Zeppelin IV remaster sales, into the future – not the royalties from 1971-2011.  Even the loss probably generates enough interest in Spirit’s back catalog, particularly the first album.  Enough to pay Malofiy’s expenses, though?  I doubt it.