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Five Years Later, Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” Copyright Lawsuit Is Still Going

posted by martyb on Sunday September 22 2019, @03:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/09/20/led-zeppelin-stairway-to-heaven-copyright-lawsuit-resumes/

The latest battle has been over their classic song "Stairway to Heaven," and amazingly, court proceedings are now in their fifth year. On September 23rd, the battle continues — once again — in federal court.

That's when the full 'en banc' panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the copyright infringement lawsuit that the descendants of Randy Wolfe initially filed against Led Zeppelin. The descendants insist that the opening cords of "Stairway to Heaven" were stolen from a song that the late guitarist wrote called "Taurus," which was performed by the band Spirit.

[...] In August, more than 120 music artists filed an amicus brief in support of the band. The artists have said that if the lawsuit against Led Zeppelin succeeds, it could seriously hamper creativity in music. Even more impressively, the U.S. government also filed an amicus brief on behalf of Led Zeppelin, citing the need to "foster innovation and creative expression."

Previously:
Led Zeppelin Appear in Court Over Stairway to Heaven Vs Spirits Taurus Dispute Music Copyright Laws Worsen as Artists Give Up

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by wisnoskij on Sunday September 22 2019, @08:27PM (2 children)

    by wisnoskij (5149) <jonathonwisnoskiNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday September 22 2019, @08:27PM (#897250)

    This is literally the worse idea I have ever heard. The idea of some sort of copyright system is to encourage innovation. Not make protecting your intellectual property impossible for the little guy nor to suck trillions of dollars from artists into the hands of accountants, lawyers, and law makers.

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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday September 22 2019, @11:43PM

    by sjames (2882) on Sunday September 22 2019, @11:43PM (#897298) Journal

    Look at the figures again. If you aren't making well over those amounts in profit, there's nothing worth protecting no matter how small you are.

  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 23 2019, @06:46AM (#897443)

    Also, the last I checked lots of bands are making more money from touring ( https://www.businessinsider.com/how-do-musicians-make-money-2018-10/ [businessinsider.com] https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/how-musicians-make-money-or-dont-at-all-in-2018-706745/ [rollingstone.com] ) than due to copyright related income streams. Seems that's been true for a long time.

    U2, which made $54.4 million ... Of their total earnings, about 95%, or $52 million, came from touring, while less than 4% came from streaming and album sales. Garth Brooks (who came in second on the list), owed about 89% of his earnings to touring, while Metallica (ranked third) raked in 71% of their earnings in the same way.

    I also know some small time musicians and they don't earn the bulk of their money from albums or singles either.

    So even if copyright law completely didn't exist it wouldn't affect the artists that much.

    And see also: https://genius.com/Steve-albini-the-problem-with-music-annotated [genius.com]

    The band is now 1/4 of the way through its contract, has made the music industry more than 3 million dollars richer, but is in the hole $14,000 on royalties. The band members have each earned about 1/3 as much as they would working at a 7-11, but they got to ride in a tour bus for a month