Led Zeppelin’s ongoing copyright suit filed by the estate of former Spirit guitarist Randy California has just been settled
That was over his claim that “Stairway to Heaven” infringed on Spirit’s 1968 song “Taurus.”.
The ruling written by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals was previously upheld in a 2016 jury verdict by the district court. The verdict read,
“We affirm the district court’s entry of judgment in favor of Led Zeppelin and other parties."
This overturned the “inverse ratio rule,” which has been set out by the courts and governed for the past 43 years. The most famous case of this was the 2015 ruling concerning “Blurred Lines.”
According to Spin, a trustee for the estate of California sued Led Zeppelin for copyright infringement back in 2014 alleging that “Stairway to Heaven” didn’t credit “Taurus.”
In 2016 the case went to trial and ruled in favour of Zeppelin.
