An heir from the band Spirit sued Robert Plant and Jimmy Page in 2014, saying that they ripped off the band in their huge hit Stairway to Heaven. A judge just ruled against him but said there were errors in the court case and ordered another trial.

Do you think this riff sounds like Stairway to Heaven?

Bits ( but only bits ) of the guitar sounded similar.

I can see a jealous musician believing they were ripped off.

I hear songs on the radio all of the time where a few seconds of the instrumentals sound similar to older, more famous songs. Those people aren't suing so I don't think these people have a case. You could say that a few seconds of brief similarity are quoting or non-ownable, like a common phrase.

It reminds me of Huey Lewis suing the people who made Ghost Busters ( he won ). His claim was that they ripped off the Power Of Love by speeding up the tempo and changing the lyrics. You can probably find the interview on YouTube.

Yes, I see your point. In the case of LZ, the defense was that those cords had been around forever. I didn't Huey Lewis sued Ghost Busters. I will have to youtube it. Those cases are so hard to prove, I'm surprised he won.

I am a yuuuge Zeppelin fan, and yes I do think they stole a lot of riffs. They toured with Spirit before they hit it big, so I can definitely see Jimmy Page standing on the side of the stage scratching his chin wondering how to make the song better. It is extremely ironic considering how strict they are about licensing their own material.

That said, the relatives of band members from Spirit have been trying for decades to get their hands on some sweet Zep cash. I hope they get it. Page should just let them have a percentage of the royalties because it would probably be cheaper than constantly hiring lawyers to fight this thing.

A large portion of their songs are rip-offs of blues songs, which were old standards and not copyrighted. I don't even think copyright was a thing until the late 70's, so they didn't think twice about revamping or "stealing" these songs. The bad thing about it is that they did not attempt to compensate the blues performers whose albums they got the songs from. To the Rolling Stones' credit, they did attribute ownership to blues performers who's albums heavily influenced them.

Here is a great compilation of songs Led Zeppelin supposedly ripped off. I still don't love them any less:

Led Zeppelin's Sweet Catalogue of Plagiarism


V

This is all very interesting. I love Zep too. But, they really should compensate the heirs to Blue Spirit. It is surprising they haven't settled out of court yet. Kudos to the Stones for compensating the blues bands.

I've noticed similar things elsewhere. Trolls being very vigilant about trolling in their spaces, etc. A cycle of abuse in reverse? A rhetorical admission?



They might be concerned that will attract more people wanting money from them. I've read that copyrights are getting out of control, lasting beyond a persons life, perhaps going into generations. Being passed down like family land. I think the Founding Fathers had the right idea in trying to limit inherited wealth. I think that is even more true of intellectual property. I don't think anyone deserves to profit from work beyond the people who made it and perhaps people who are dependent on them like young children.



That was extremely interesting!




Neato!

Yeah, for nothing else, it would at least be cheaper in the long run.

I am flummoxed that the connection between Zep touring with Spirit and the clear rip-off of the riff has been trifling evidence.