JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Stairway Lawsuit

I have always maintained that music stemmed from a basic human need. And that it was never supposed to be a business. So your right in saying its a question only asked by modern people cerca 1500 and there on. SLowly when Classical music came about it became more of a business.

Anways, im not defending Led Zep, ive had many many arguments that I always seem to lose with my Led Zepplin friends. The debate of which was the better band The WHO or ZEP, i always seemed to lose, but couldnt understand why. Best rock drummer, Moon, Best rock bassist ever, Entwhistle, Best front man ever Daltry, next to Jaggar, and one of the best howls in rock, and one of the greatest songwriters in rock history in Pete, the songs were songs not just riffs.

And no copyright infringements! The Who still blow my mind more than Zep ever could, but I do love zep as well.

But Zep followed the blues tradition, you become unique by the way you interpret whats already there. SO maybe they felt they were entitled to borrow, and or steal.

They didnt have to do all that, some of their ballad and folk stuff was strong enough so as to never be accused of stealing.

But I will say that Jimmy Page might be the greatest riff writer of all time. Its hard to find another, possibly Keith RIchards but not quite as extensive

Humm,
Copyright started in England I think. Statute of Anne was written so Creators of Literature could profit some for their creations. All copyright has a life and then goes into Public Domain. You can Google Statute of Anne to read all about it.
U.S Copyright Pre-dates the U.S. Constitution.

Put differently, profiting off another's creativity is a modern problem mostly due to the fact that in most societies, distance and space are no longer factors in the distribution of works of music, art, etc. If a Martian came down and proved he was real and said, "just dropping off this music and art we've produced over the centuries, see ya!"...no one would even imagine there was copyrights on such works--not even a "natural" one.. That doesn't make it morally and ethically exceptable to claim the work as one's own, though legally there would be no problem, other than who gets to plunder the Martian art first. Sounds like a satirical sci-fi comedy ripe for the making, cuz of course, they're coming back and they want attribution. Attribution or instant liquidation, and "we're not talking assets!"

And yes, perhaps Led Zep felt some entitlement..

And one could delve endlessly into the implications of Cultural imperialism in all its forms and come to no solid conclusions, but I still believe that it's morally wrong to steal from ANY person or culture--yet I believe that to create a work that is derivative is okay, and that except for the most experimental of works, most works are in fact derivative of what has come before in some degree..in varying degrees..

It's a big, messy world..

Mike

100%

Circa 1500 Gutenberg's printing press..I knew sooner or later reading Marshall McLuhan would pay off

I think it comes down to how immediately recognizable some aspect of a piece of music is.

If someone hears a song and they say..."that reminds me of...." ....Probably not a big deal.
if someone hears a song and thinks that it is another song and then finds out that it is not, I think that draws a clearer line on theft.

And then other things come into play...the Marvin Gaye copyright holders may have never had a case if Robin Thicke had not remarked about the lift.

I personally think that part of it is that the theft has been so blatant and "in your face" by the big dawgs in the music industry fr so long, that the worm finally had enough and turned.

Disclaimer...all of the above is the opinion of a hobbyist who knows nothing about copyright law.

I read that too. I think the first paid concert ever was in the 1600's at some classical composers house. He got the idea to start charging.

But im sure live music had been played in public for probably thousands of years, like the ancient Romans must have had some live venues, after all, they had live executions for public delight, they actually had full bills, execution in the morning, gladiator fights later in the afternoon, but im not sure how they would have played such a big place without amplication

Yeah, the only thing considered unique is a particular phrasing of melody. Hard to believe that 5 notes in a particular pattern can garner so much protection.

For me it seems odd that somebody can blatantly steal a Charlie Watts beat, and people will say "ohh cool he's playing a Charlie Watts beat" but steal Jaggar's melody, and theyll say "wait a minute, he's stealing Jaggars melody"

Or even greater "oh cool he's using a Pete Townshend acoustic rhythm on guitar" no problem, but "wait he's singing the same five notes as Daltry"

it seems odd. I guess the response would be that melody has unlimited combinations whereas a drummer would run out of possibilites.

Then again, there are so many melodys in the world, that finding 5 unique notes for a chorus, it probably impossible.

it comes down to popularity really. They use to say the only way to protect your song is to have a hit with it. you wont win any case against somebody with the copyright from congress. If its a popular song then you have alot of protection cause you can use the argument that it was heard.

This conversation is leading towards an area I find interesting which is..should we as composers consider changing the basic structure of how we approach writing a song? (for fear of a lawsuit)

Short answer? No way..

As FD points out it, takes a "hit" to create litigation..

Long answer, "no" with an asterisk...

Like most folks, when I write a song I'm using "the God model" (I like to call it) which is simply the old fashioned way of presumably "writing from the void" --starting tabula rasa and then using our inner editor to tell us when we're encroaching on another's song.

But sometimes I'll start with an existing work, melody, chord progression, and then deviate from it 'til it's unrecognizable as that existing work, which I think is a totally okay practice at this point in time, in the world we live in. Whatever works, yanno..And with non-commercial projects and instrumental work? I am at this point mostly deviating from known works. But DO understand..the processes I use create something FAR, far, removed from the original--and this to me, at this point in my life, is where the fun is. and so I can thoroughly understand and empathize with a Led Zep who worked this way..only I DON'T empathize with how they forgot to deviate enough from the original, or give proper attribution when they didn't!

My mom loved shopping at second hand stores, and I think my love for finding a re-purposing for old, forgotten things (which is mostly the material I'm deviating from) is not so different from her passion..so I think I am partly 'where I'm at' as an homage to her.

Consider writing the innocent way, the God model way..I think this works best if we don't listen to a lot of music, cuz we don't want our inner editors hitting a buzzer every time we encroach a little on another's work. I think this would be very inhibiting if you know a lot a music!

Writing from a known source and then deviating is perhaps the best way for someone who knows a lot of music. Consider that "all known melodies" create, to steal a John Luis Borges story title, a "Garden of Forking Paths" with which we must navigate to find a path less traveled..

"Blasphemy!" --some will say.."this is not composing! You are turning the act of creation into an act of circumnavigation!"

--to which my response would be, "but hasn't our modern litigious society in a world full of countless songs more or less forced this upon us?"

And why should "writing from the void" be the only way? I think it is NO LESS creative to start with the known and deviate, ESPECIALLY if you have a head full of other people's music. It's a more honest approach, for those of us who do..and sorry, I'm a broken record here, most works are in fact derivative of what has come before in some degree..in varying degrees..

Mike

My goal as a creator is to do something that no one else did. It's a low bar when you think about it, but sometimes a high one too, and also my life goal, just to have done or affected something that would not have happened unless I did it. I find that deeply gratifying, and dead serious, because life and death is real. And so whatever art I attempt is in keen awareness of that reality, of this temporary writing room.

That said, anything we do is something no one else could have done, at least not the same way. So when one band plays another bands song, it rocks anew—it's unique. Plagiarism is a legal thing, but covering, stealing, freely adapting, mangling, reinterpreting, massacring, is all just more art and unique performance to me. Legally I think Zeppelin are pretty much always guilty in any lawsuit...they were just so blatantly lazy about rewriting well-known lyrics even slightly to make them new, and then wondered why it wasn't taken as a tribute when they called them originals, not covers. But artistically, I'll be happily listening to their entire catalog for the rest of my life. They effen rock.

Dazed and Confused was my favorite Led Zep track. Then I heard the Jake Holmes original. I am glad he finally sued and they settled out of court. Holmes would no doubt have won, had it gone to trial. Like with Spirit, he opened for them at one point and they heard the song. So there appears to be a pattern, here. Of course, a jury probably cannot have any other songs or cases brought into evidence, and the jury will be selected based on how little they know about the band.

Yes, like you my goals are to create something fresh, and I think there are countless paths that lead to that.

I don't like Led Zep when they are poppy like with D'yer M'aker and "All My Love" --I find them too thin sounding and Bonham is way over the top..give me their bluesier stuff. There's still nothing quite like "Whole Lotta Love" or like Black Dog and it's odd-metered, lead guitar turnarounds!

I think of composing more like arranging. We’re merely trying to rearrange the elements of music into something new. That said, I dig deep into my musical soul to find meaning beyond the elements. If I had to consider originality, I wouldn’t get past the first measure. My influences like Rachmaninoff, Ravel, Gershwin, Mozart, and on and on… is deeply rooted in who I am as a composer, oh, arranger. So yeah… Stop analyzing; just compose the damn thing!

John

You prefer to put one note after another, more like the "God model."

Lately, when I'm in "experimental music" mode, I find I'm preferring to have software create a bunch of musical elements, and then sculpt away at that, 'til what I'm left with is a little nugget with which I can then use one of countless compositional techniques (expand, invert, retrograde, etc.) to vary. I am relying far less on "hearing it in my head" as the only way towards authenticity and originality. I find that if I have created fifty possibilities, I can quickly choose the one I "resonate" most with..

I still like to write one note after another, like you, maybe already having a chord progression..but I am also keenly following the advances in modern compositional software and at least mess around with it, when demos are available, and see if it's of any use to me.

You prefer to put one note after another, more like the "God model. - Mike

More like one phrase after another Mike. The instrumental composer has more possibilities than the songwriter. I use dissonance freely and extraneous modulations. A simple jump to an unrelated chord can open up a new sector of possibilities.

John

Aaah...that makes sense when I think upon your ouvre! You do like modulations to unrelated keys, or keys with just a note or two in common! So your basic building block is the phrase? And the cluster of notes that belongs within the scale or chord that is working within that phrase. Very interesting.

Bu the way, I write a lot of instrumental music myself, but much is experimental, jazz, and modern classical, and though I have had far less overall success than you, I find it's a part of who I am that I can't let go of this practice. I have maybe fifty/sixty things up at Audioaparx but stopped submitting a few years back when I started doing demo work, but still receive a little check Paypal payment a couple times a year, I think it is. But I never stopped writing and finishing pieces, so my plan is to start uploading the more recent stuff. The self PR (writing blurbies) and creating submixes is SO damn time consuming, for me, though.

I have a whole series of pieces that like you, freely modulate at the scale and mode level.I find that as long as some musical element remains constant, scales/modes can practically be used serially.

Btw, saying "the damn thing" has become part of my everyday speaking/writing patterns. I attribute this to you, and feel like I must owe you some back royalties on that!

Mike

Like John, I employ dissonance quite extensively, though never intentionally LOL.

For years now, I have had a certain melody swirling around in my brain, which I really love (the melody, not my brain) l. I haven't put a lyric to it or recorded it partly because I have not yet come up with the lyric that would do it justice, but also partly because I feel like I must have heard it before. I must be stealing it from someone. I keep thinking that one day I will hear it again and say, "Of course, that's where it came from!" but I never do. It seems like all I can do is finally put words to it, record it, put it out there and wait for someone to say, "Hey, I know that tune, its...." Or maybe nobody will - maybe I really am just that good

What I have found is that sometimes a tune sounds like something that I never heard prior, until I record it. Then it begins too.
Sometimes, on very rare occasions.

I admit to nothing.

Btw, saying "the damn thing" has become part of my everyday speaking/writing patterns. I attribute this to you, and feel like I must owe you some back royalties on that! - Mike


Nah, it's in the public domain Mike.

Most often, I have a good idea of my direction before starting to compose. First the genre, then a title, then a complete mental vision of what I want to accomplish. Doesn't always stay on track. I often rename my work when it doesn't live up to my mental vision. Sometimes I’ll just, without thinking, strike a two-hand chord (often a dissonant mush) and use that as a starting point – with no direction in mind. Or, I’ll compose something specific for a film listing or publisher’s request. Other times I’ll play a single note melody and add the harmony later. So, I use a hodge-podge of methods. Without fail, I compose 10-15 tracks every two weeks. It helps me keep “the eye of the tiger”.

I use a plethora of compositional methods, myself. I find a hodge-podge rather dodgy.

Gavin, thanks for the nice laugh!

I can sympathize with you and Marty, cuz this too has happened with me, and I suspect with most of us at some point. Once I spent a week going through EVERY Elvis song, convinced I had ripped off about 6-8 bars..

Gavin, you should produce and post the song here. Pretty safe place to find out either way.

I think our subconscious' could just as easily be ripping off two or more things at once, but straddling the line so perfectly that it's undetectable to our conscious mind.

There's old compositional software made in Java (the computer language, not the Country) that came out fifteen years or so ago, that does exactly that. You can input two different songs, in midi format, and it will "spit out" the median between the two. The titles I used will tell you what songs I used for "Bridge Over Hotel California," "Born To Da Doo Ron Ron,"and "I Want Your Sex Machine"

To me the guitar solo in Whole lotta love is the most exciting guitar solo I have heard to date. Nothing on this planet that sounds anything like it, it's bluesy but nobody quite did it like that. Its hard not to make a face melting grimmace when hearing it.

I think arranging is a big part of composing. The melody gets all the credit, but take the greatest melody of all time and change the chord progression, there goes your great melody.

When people send off their lyric and melody to a demo maker, you have to wonder whose song it is once the demo maker gets done with it.

I think what John means by "arranging" is taking the (standard) ideas about arranging for instruments and apply those same ideas to the more detailed musical elements like the notes. Perhaps "rearranging" fits better for what John is intending to mean, or less confusing. John likes to find a handful of notes and "rearrange" them as one of his "go to" tools in the hodge-podge of tools in his toolbox.

lets put this to rest and lets not hear any more about it.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/led-zeppelin-prevails-appeal-over-162802174.html

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - Led Zeppelin on Monday persuaded a U.S. appeals court to reinstate a jury verdict that it did not steal the opening guitar riff for "Stairway to Heaven" from an obscure song written four years earlier.

In a 9-2 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said lead singer Robert Plant's and guitarist Jimmy Page's 1971 rock anthem did not infringe "Taurus," written by guitarist Randy Wolfe of the band Spirit.

"The trial and appeal process has been a long climb up the 'Stairway to Heaven,'" Circuit Judge Margaret McKeown wrote for the majority.

Wolfe, who performed as Randy California, drowned in 1997, but a trustee for his estate sought damages potentially reaching millions of dollars.

"Obviously, the court got it wrong," the trustee's lawyer, Francis Malofiy, said in an interview. "This is a big loss for creators, those who copyright laws are meant to protect." Malofiy said he may appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Lawyers for Led Zeppelin did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The decision in the five-year-old case was a victory for a music industry still combating fallout from a 2015 verdict that Robin Thicke's and Pharrell Williams' 2013 smash "Blurred Lines" copied Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit "Got to Give It Up."

Jurors awarded Gaye's children $7.4 million, which was later reduced to $5.3 million. The singer Katy Perry is appealing a $2.8 million verdict reached last August in a separate copyright case over her song "Dark Horse."

Wolfe's trustee, Michael Skidmore, said "Stairway" and "Taurus" had similar chord progressions, and that Page may have written "Stairway" after hearing "Taurus" while Led Zeppelin and Spirit toured together.

In a June 2016 verdict, jurors found that while Plant and Page had access to "Taurus," its riff was not intrinsically similar to "Stairway."

Jurors were not allowed to listen to "Taurus," and Monday's decision found this and other alleged errors did not require a new trial.

More importantly, the appeals court ditched its "inverse ratio" rule, which says the more access songwriters have to earlier works, the lower the bar for proving substantial similarity.

McKeown said the rule "defies logic," given how the concept of access has become "increasingly diluted" as more songs become available on Netflix, Spotify, YouTube and other platforms.

She also said minor song similarities might not support infringement claims. "We have never extended copyright protection to just a few notes," she wrote.

Five of the six federal appeals courts to consider the inverse ratio rule now reject it. The 9th Circuit covers California and eight other Western states.

The case is Skidmore v Led Zeppelin et al, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 16-56057.



(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien and Jonathan Oatis)

Here's an analysis in a Youtube link from 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MBKJDmE-OQ

Will this case EVER DIE??? Should have been dismissed decades ago, but still comes up. EVERYTHING SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING ELSE!!! It's a physical impossiblility not to. I hope this Vampire case finally has a stake driven through it's heart. Led Zepplin copped plenty of pieces over their careers, but you can't deny that they were an amazing band and took all to a totally different place. You can't do that by "just copying other songs."
But, I'm sure it will pop back up somewhere .Some things just don't ever die.

MAB

The song is so far and above miles ahead of that song by Tauras. Plus, we're talking about a matter of notes, descending and ascending in a scale. in ONE tiny part of the Epic of Stairway To Heaven. It's like saying I wrote the word "buying" before Led Zepplin did and they stole it from me. Thats how miniscule it is, if it exists at all. Honestly, it doesnt sound much the same to me anyway, frankly that guy Davy Graham has a much stronger argument. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWeejHJxGjs

Yes a copyright is there to protect, but what exactly is stolen, im sorry i've never heard it.

If you listen to this song, you would have to think...these guys ripped it from "dont let me down" by the beatles.... so far no case, maybe one day

This is way more obvious than The Stairway thing. Same syncopation in the melody, same hanging on the the same chord, same chords.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InJGcTjpoGs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCtzkaL2t_Y