Led Zeppelin wins lawsuit over ‘Stairway to Heaven’

LOS ANGELES — Led Zeppelin won an ongoing copyright lawsuit over the guitar riff in “Stairway to Heaven,” according to a verdict announced on Thursday.

The suit was filed in 2014 by Michael Skidmore, the trustee of the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust, who asserted that the iconic riff was stolen from the 1968 Spirit song “Taurus.” “Stairway to Heaven” was released in 1971 on the record “Led Zeppelin IV.”

Over the course of the trial, which began on June 14 and lasted over a week, the jury heard testimony from Skidmore, a Spirit band member and musicologists who discussed whether Led Zeppelin had heard “Taurus” before writing “Stairway to Heaven,” and argued the musical similarities between the two songs.

Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, vocalist Robert Plant and bassist John Paul Jones also testified at trial, saying that they did not remember seeing Spirit play live, despite the fact that the bands shared bills during Zeppelin’s early years. Page said that he had not heard “Taurus” until recently.

Spirit’s frontman, Wolfe, died in 1997. During his lifetime he never took legal action against Led Zeppelin.

The precedent set by another verdict in March 2015 — when a judge ordered Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams to pay $7.3 million to the family of Marvin Gaye over their song “Blurred Lines.” — only heightened the stakes for the Zeppelin trial.