Led Zeppelin to Face New ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Trial

Led Zeppelin will again go on trial in a lawsuit alleging the band ripped off the “Stairway to Heaven” intro from an instrumental track, Bloomberg reported. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decided Friday to overturn the 2016 jury verdict determining that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page’s 1971 hit didn’t steal from the “Taurus,” which came out in 1968. A trust representing Randy Wolfe, the late guitarist of Spirit, had filed the suit, Bloomberg said. During the trial, music experts said in court that the opening rift of “Taurus,” described  as a “descending chromatic scale,” is routinely used in mainstream music—so common it doesn’t merit copyright protection, according to Bloomberg. Wolfe’s trust had claimed the trial wasn’t fair, on the grounds that jurors only heard the acoustic version of “Taurus” rather than the recorded take. The Ninth Circuit’s decision hinged on the trial judge’s handling of jury instructions and decisions on trial evidence, Bloomberg reported.