Eriq Gardner of the Hollywood Reporter reports:
Led Zeppelin is stuck in Pennsylvania at the moment, forced to confront claims forced to confront claims the band stole its biggest hit Stairway to Heaven from Randy Craig Wolfe, founding member of the band Spirit.
Wolfe’s heirs sued Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and their music companies in June, asserting that the story Page has told over the years about holing himself up in a remote cottage in Wales in 1970 and creating the iconic song is false. The plaintiff alleges that the music really came from Spirit, which once toured with Led Zeppelin in the late 1960s. To hear the song in question, please click here.
In reaction to the lawsuit, the defendants challenged jurisdiction.
“The individual defendants are British citizens residing in England, own no property in Pennsylvania and have no contacts with Pennsylvania, let alone ties sufficient to render them essentially at home here,” stated a memorandum to dismiss.
In response, the plaintiff amended the lawsuit with some emphasis on why a Pennsylvania judge should oversee the case: “Defendants are subject to specific jurisdiction in this district because they make millions of dollars from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by directly targeting this district for the exploitation of Stairway to Heaven through CD sales, digital downloading, radio and television play, advertising, marketing, concert performances, other performances, licensing, and otherwise targeting resident individuals and businesses to profit off the exploitation of Stairway to Heaven.’
U.S. District Court Judge Juan Sánchez has now denied the motion to dismiss or transfer without prejudice, meaning that the Zeppelin parties can still try again.
The judge didn’t offer any reasoning in his written order, but those looking for the standards by which judges determine jurisdiction can read about another judge’s recent decision to throw out a trademark lawsuit filed by John Wayne’s heirs against Duke University.
source: hollywoodreporter.com
32 Responses
Watch, nothing will come of this in the end. The ruling will go in Zeppelin’s favor.
On a different note, am I the only one who can never hear Stairway To Heaven again? I’m sick of it. I don’t even listen to Led Zeppelin IV any more. I can’t remember the last time I listened to it. I prefer Houses Of The Holy over it anyway, always have.
Stairway is one of the biggest songs ever. Not just rock and roll. You could say it’s a top 10 that crosses all genres of music. Not sure how much $ could potentially be as stake.
But the appeals process could take a really long time if zep were to loose. The band members may not even be alive to see the result.
Much of the rock music from the 60s and early 70s was borrowed here and there. It’s so hard to say if this was just a coincidence or not.
I doubt many people really care anymore
Whose Led Zeppelin???? Is that the band who were trying to sound like Kingdom Come??
No, they were trying to sound like Whitesnake.
To sue costs a huge amount of money. Ex Spirit members/estates have no power to sue a mega million dollar Led Zeppelin entity unless a high power firm is inked to get a monster percentage of the win and agree to taking out their fee from the verdict too. James Garner got beat out of his Rockford Files % by cooked books. Took him millions (and years) to fight Universal and he won but their in-house lawyers beat him down financially. You need lotsa $ to get what is yours on that level.
All I can say is, there’s NO WAY that Spirit song could’ve topped every “greatest songs” list for the last 40 years!!! 4-5 notes played softly on acoustic guitar??? Yup…guilty..