Lawsuit Accusing Led Zeppelin of "Stairway" Theft, Proceeds.

originally posted by: Vaedur
a reply to: CardiffGiant

Hammer of the gods I think the book is.

sounds right...i read it a long time ago....
i knew about it from frank zappa's song the mud shark though...

that song/story is well circulated in zappa lore

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Vaedur

I'm aware that Maddox was 14 at the time. She isn't any more, and she still isn't complaining. My hat is off to Ms. Maddox; she has style.

That doesn't make it right, and it still makes him a pedophile. Just because the victim is o.k. with it doesn't mean it's fine. He was also in this thirties at the time. Definitely a pedophile.

Dude, zeppelin music is some of my favorite music. I even saw page / plant live 3 times... I'm a huge zephead, lol. I'm just pointing out the disturbing facts.

originally posted by: Vaedur
...Just because the victim is o.k. with it doesn't mean it's fine. He was also in this thirties at the time. Definitely a pedophile.

Dude, zeppelin music is some of my favorite music. I even saw page / plant live 3 times... I'm a huge zephead, lol. I'm just pointing out the disturbing facts.

But the "facts" in this issue are a "red herring" in the case of accusations against Led Zeppelin of stealing "Stairway to Heaven" or any other song. The same can be said about the "facts" associated with Jimmy Page somehow being a "notorious miser." Both of these only serve people who have an interest in smearing his character to make it more believable that he's a thief.

These are the kinds of "facts" being included above to make statements like this one appear to be plausible:

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Petros312
He [Jimmy Page] uses other people's songs as building-blocks for his compositions, which is fine, but he doesn't like sharing the royalties, which is not fine.

The comment above is so distorted and overgeneralized there just aren't any facts to support this. Change the statement to something reasonable like: "You can hear in some of Page's compositions that he's been influenced by many early blues artists," and I'd have no further reply.

Petros312, you are correct in you assessments. If a court finds, through expert witnesses, that the first portion of STH is similar enough then that is for the courts to decide. It is a very small portion of the whole piece though and the rest stands on its own.

I have no issue with these similarities and this is very common in blues music since it all has the same roots. By the same token i can listen to music even from the 70s and say "the part sounds like Hendrix..." although usually played differently with different effects etc. and people don't usually have any issues with it especially since little money is involved. TBH few people would know about the band "Spirit" but fair is fair...imop.

To Astyanax, you walk a bit of a fine line here and would not want to detract from creative freedom. At some point you get to "did this artist draw the same line as that great painter?" etc.

One example posted here was The Doors copying a Kinks song and i really do not hear much similarity at all and to say it exists is being very generous.

ETA: The band in question and especially Jimmy Page have contributed a lot to this genre which is probably an understatement. From my understanding Page was an expert engineer in the studio and played a big part of their sound and a small percentage sometimes even unknowingly or subconsciously would not detract much overall.

a reply to: Vaedur

I'm just pointing out the disturbing facts.

I know. I just don't find them disturbing.

*

a reply to Petros312

So, I see you deleted a post just prior to your latest one above claiming the "hard evidence" you presented was all based on SUCCESSFUL court cases.

I deleted no posts, nor have I changed my position in any way.

When a copyright suit is settled out of court with a payment to the plaintiff and an acknowledgement of his rights to credit and royalties, that is a victory for the plaintiff.

Of the ones you post and then authoritatively call "hard evidence" against the band, you include the ones that were either 1) unsuccessful, or 2) settled out of court, which do NOT "prove" the band was guilty of any copyright infringement!

Don't you ever read the links?

The examples I chose were from a section of the Wikipedia page on musical plagiarism titled 'Successful suits and settlements'. The only exception is Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, which, as you say, never came to court, because Led Zeppelin admitted wrongdoing and settled the matter before it did.

It's easy to hear why when you listen to this 1965 version of the song by The Association. If the matter had come to court, Zeppelin wouldn't have had a leg to stand on.

Led Zeppelin stole big chunks of music from other people. This is widely acknowledged even by Led Zeppelin themselves. Usually, they blame each other for it, as in this extract from a Guitar World interview with Jimmy Page.

GW: When you were borrowing from classic blues songs on the first two albums, did you ever think it would catch up to you?

Page: You mean getting sued? Well, as far as my end of it goes, I always tried to bring something fresh to anything that I used. I always made sure to never know what the original source could be. Maybe not in every case -- but in most cases. So most of the comparisons rest on the lyrics. And Robert was supposed to change the lyrics, and he didn't always do that -- which is what brought on most of the grief. They couldn't get us on the guitar parts of the music, but they nailed us on the lyrics.

We did, however, take some liberties, I must say [laughs]. But never mind; we did try to do the right thing, it blew up in our faces... When we were up at Headley Grange recording Physical Graffiti, Ian Stewart came by and we started to jam. The jam turned into Boogie With Stu, which was obviously a variation on "Ooh My Head" by the late Ritchie Valens, which itself was actually a variation of Little Richard's "Ooh My Soul". What we tried to do was give Ritchie's mother credit because we heard she never received any royalties from any of her son's hits, and Robert did lean on that lyric a bit. So what happens? They tried to sue us for all of the song!! We had to say bugger off. We could not believe it. So anyway, if there is any plagiarism, just blame Robert [laughs].

I'm pretty sick of hearing you accuse me of bad faith and call me a liar. Why do you find it so difficult to conduct an argument without getting aggressive and personal? Every word I have posted on this thread is true, at least to my knowledge; and as may perhaps be evident to other readers than yourself, I do know quite a bit about Led Zeppelin, and even a bit about music.

originally posted by: Astyanax
When a copyright suit is settled out of court with a payment to the plaintiff and an acknowledgement of his rights to credit and royalties, that is a victory for the plaintiff.

Non sequitur type argument:

Claim A: Led Zep settled out of court regarding a song allegedly stolen.
Evidence: payment made to the "plaintiff"
Conclusion: Led Zep must have been guilty of copyright infringement

This is total logical fallacy. There are many different reasons the band may have settled out of court, including the avoidance of the kind of distorted press releases that I'm sure you would only applaud.

originally posted by: Astyanax
The examples I chose were from a section of the Wikipedia page on musical plagiarism titled 'Successful suits and settlements'. The only exception is Babe I'm Gonna Leave You, which, as you say, never came to court, because Led Zeppelin admitted wrongdoing and settled the matter before it did.

You are confounding what a "successful settlement" is with what is being guilty of copyright infringement. The quote above suggests not that you simply disagree but that you don't understand my rebuttle here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

originally posted by: Astyanax
[Guitar World Magazine Interview]: When you were borrowing from classic blues songs on the first two albums, did you ever think it would catch up to you?

Page: You mean getting sued? Well, as far as my end of it goes, I always tried to bring something fresh to anything that I used. I always made sure to never know what the original source could be. Maybe not in every case -- but in most cases. So most of the comparisons rest on the lyrics. And Robert was supposed to change the lyrics, and he didn't always do that -- which is what brought on most of the grief. They couldn't get us on the guitar parts of the music, but they nailed us on the lyrics.

We did, however, take some liberties, I must say [laughs]. But never mind; we did try to do the right thing, it blew up in our faces... When we were up at Headley Grange recording Physical Graffiti, Ian Stewart came by and we started to jam. The jam turned into Boogie With Stu, which was obviously a variation on "Ooh My Head" by the late Ritchie Valens, which itself was actually a variation of Little Richard's "Ooh My Soul". What we tried to do was give Ritchie's mother credit because we heard she never received any royalties from any of her son's hits, and Robert did lean on that lyric a bit. So what happens? They tried to sue us for all of the song!! We had to say bugger off. We could not believe it. So anyway, if there is any plagiarism, just blame Robert [laughs].

That does not sound like the confession of a "notorious miser" or "frightful thief." Lots of details in that small blurb indicate they were INFLUENCED by other songs to create something "fresh" from the inspiration, which still doesn't deviate from any interviews I've heard in which the band says they were inspired by early blues artists. I agree Robert Plant has taken lines from early blues songs. It's highly questionable you can legally copyright one line (e.g., Squeeze my lemon until the juice runs down my leg) and then claim part authorship of an entire song that uses the same phrase. Page says, "IF there's any PLAGIARISM..." and plagiarism is a term that applies to the legal definition of copyright infringement.

originally posted by: Astyanax
I'm pretty sick of hearing you accuse me of bad faith and call me a liar...Every word I have posted on this thread is true.

Yes, even the contradictions are true (I made it a point to quote some of them)! Just like you can't "well establish" a fact by repeatedly claiming it's "well established" (e.g., Jimmy Page is a "notorious miser"), you can't demonstrate you're telling the truth by repeatedly insisting you're telling the truth. You're going to have to find where I actually get personal with YOU, because I'm addressing YOUR ARGUMENT as one that is generally fallacious due to obvious condescending statements, jeers, sophism and non sequitur reasoning. Readers will believe what they want regardless of the rhetoric you use in your smear campaign, and there's evidence of this above.

When you start to consider evidence like this:

Jimmy Page Charity Work, Events and Causes

instead of resorting to confirmation bias of "well established facts" that supposedly support Jimmy Page could only be a "notorious miser" (as if nothing but the truth), maybe we can start having a more amiable dialog.

Miles Davis "seven steps to Heaven"
Three on this hand.




www.stevehuffphoto.com...


nyulocal.com...

a reply to: Petros312

Claim A: Led Zep settled out of court regarding a song allegedly stolen.
Evidence: payment made to the "plaintiff"
Conclusion: Led Zep must have been guilty of copyright infringement

You are confounding what a "successful settlement" is with what is being guilty of copyright infringement.

I never said anything about copyright infringement. We are arguing about plagiarism.

This was discussed earlier. You are going round in circles.

When a party accused of copyright infringement changes the by-line on the material to reflect the plaintiff's claim and makes a financial settlement with the plaintiff, that is, as I said before (you force me to repeat mysief), a victory for the plaintiff. The suit has been settled out of court in the plaintiff's favour. It does not make the defendant guilty in law of copyright infringement, but it certainly proves that the plaintiff has a moral right to sue.

plagiarism is a term that applies to the legal definition of copyright infringement

Plagiarism is not a legal term. Again, you make me repeat things I pointed out earlier.

Your reading of Page's statements to Guitar World is eyes wide shut. Not that I'm surprised.

You have no case left, just torn shreds and tatters too small for you even to stitch together any more. Go, before even those shreds are taken from you.

Oh, and by the way: charitable donations are tax-deductible. They don't cost Jimmy a penny.

Comprehensive if opinionated blog post on Led Zeppelin's 'borrowings' from other musicians: The Song Remains Ingrained.

originally posted by: Astyanax
Comprehensive if opinionated blog post on Led Zeppelin's 'borrowings' from other musicians: The Song Remains Ingrained.

it is one thing to compose a tune...it is another thing to make it sound good....i really dont care if they stole a tune or two....the reason they are loved is because they are an awesome band .... they had what it took....led zep are and will always be an icon.....and if they did not make it to where they did many other great bands would not have had the influence they did.....

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

If you had read more of the thread, you would have seen me express sentiments similar to yours in several earlier posts.

Some people make gods out of their musical heroes, then scream and throw tantrums when their gods are shown to have feet of clay. I'm not like that, and I think such people are naïve and unrealistic. A great artist may well be a miser, a thief or even a paedophile. That does not detract from the value of the art he produces, except in the minds of the ignorant, who expect the world to conform to the conventions of folklore — or, as we call it nowadays, television.

To the true connoissieur, the fact that Led Zeppelin's beautiful music was produced by a man of extremely dubious moral character actually adds piquancy and depth to the experience of listening to it. Long life to the Devil, and to his music-thieving, drug-abusing, jailbait-kissing, ecdysiastic, miserly disciple, James Patrick Page!

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Incidentally, has anyone noticed that Dazed & Confused contains a line that may be interpreted as the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Anyone care to tell us which line it is?

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Incidentally, has anyone noticed that Dazed & Confused contains a line that may be interpreted as the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit? Anyone care to tell us which line it is?

soul of a woman was created below...

To the true connoissieur, the fact that Led Zeppelin's beautiful music was produced by a man of extremely dubious moral character actually adds piquancy and depth to the experience of listening to it. Long life to the Devil, and to his music-thieving, drug-abusing, jailbait-kissing, ecdysiastic, miserly disciple, James Patrick Page!

long live jimmy
another one of my fav's

a reply to: hopenotfeariswhatweneed

Straight to the top of the class, and a star for you!

originally posted by: yeahright

The following is my opinion as a member participating in this discussion.

Ladies and Genetlemen I give you...


Axis of Awesome!!!

-or- How many songs can you play with the same 4 chords?

Face it, without all of rock & roll stealing liberally from Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Lead Belly, Eddie (Guitar Slim) Jones, Pat Hare, and Little Richard, there wouldn't be any rock & roll.

Find a sound clip of the 1954 song, Cotton Crop Blues featuring Pat Hare's heavily distorted power cords and screaming lead and you'll see why every heavy metal guitarist today ought to have to pay a royalty to Hare's estate just for plugging in an amp.

As an ATS Staff Member, I will not moderate in threads such as this where I have participated as a member.

Wow this thread has become a heated debate! yay ATS I just wanted to interject that both Taurus and Led Zeppelin can take it one step further and sue Dolly Parton with "We Use To" I never heard this song before but this very subject came on npr and I was quite surprise Dolly Parton was mentioned I've always admired her singer/song writing career. it looks like lawsuits are normal in the music industry just part of the business.
I just read where she was given the ok by Led Zeppelin to record the song

While it may seem unlikely, country music queen Dolly Parton is big fan of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” going so far as to record a cover of the classic rock song, with the blessing of the band, in 2002. Back in 1975, though, she released “We Used To,” which seemingly directly lifted the lead chord progression from “Stairway To Heaven.”

link

a reply to: TWILITE22

Great link. That's the Song Remains the Same version of Stairway, right? The only perfect version to make it on to record, at least — ahem — legally. Robert Plant's finest vocal moment? Certainly a contender. And Jimmy's solo is mesmerizing, especially the phrasing with John Bonham just before the vocal comes back. You can — well, I think I can — hear Bonzo speed up just a tad to stay in sync with his overexcited boss. Might have been overdubbed later, though — you can hear an edit in the guitar track just before the switch back from 12-string to 6-string for the solo. Thats all right, though — it was a movie (with really bad taste special effects).

a reply to: Astyanax

Regardless of how their music came to be they have brought much pleasure to me over the years and sure any band that big will have these kind of legal issues. I'm just happy to listen to their music
Of course can't bring up Led Zeppelin without this classic song

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Petros312
I never said anything about copyright infringement. We are arguing about plagiarism.

This was discussed earlier. You are going round in circles.

[sigh] Unbelievable.

When one speaks of plagiarism its definition is often contained within the definition of copyright infringement:

"Examples of copyright infringement may include borrowing significant portions of another's work in the creation of a new work... even if the original work is cited."

source: www.lib.uconn.edu...

What kind of things did you say above:

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Petros312
You'll find that in the first twelve bars of the guitar solo (which is played at a faster tempo than the rest of the song). It reproduces more or less identically the first twelve bars (sans the unaccompanied guitar intro) of Killing Floor. The guitar parts are near-identical...

The songs also share a near-identical lyric in their first lines, but that's not where the real issue lies. The steal is in the solo.

By the way, The Lemon Song also steals a lyric from Robert Johnson's Travelling Riverside Blues. The lyric is 'squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg'. Another direct lift, and rather harder to explain away...

Johnson, perhaps fortunately, has no living relatives left to sue on his behalf.

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Petros312
Black Mountain Side was only partly stolen from Bert Jansch's arrangement of Black Waterside...

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Petros312
I think Page is an original and inspired musician, composer and producer. He uses other people's songs as building-blocks for his compositions, which is fine, but he doesn't like sharing the royalties, which is not fine.

Above are all examples from your accusations about "borrowing significant portions of another's work in the creation of a new work," which is contained within the definition of copyright infringement. More importantly, you speak directly in reference to copyright infringement SPECIFICALLY when you say:

originally posted by: Astyanax
a reply to: Vaedur
When a copyright suit is settled out of court with a payment to the plaintiff and an acknowledgement of his rights to credit and royalties, that is a victory for the plaintiff.

and this claim of yours above is still an example of a non sequitur argument (see www.abovetopsecret.com... ), but is now yet ANOTHER example of how severe your contradictions and lies are are in this truly worthless discussion.

originally posted by: Astyanax
I never said anything about copyright infringement...

On the contrary, you had much to say about copyright infringement without even realizing it. At least I know what I'm arguing about without resorting to lies, distortions, red herrings, contradictions, condescending remarks, etc. You only continue to demonstrate how you're making what is beyond a twisted argument to support your claim that Led Zeppelin were "frightful thieves" -- words that indicate nothing other than a harsh perverse opinion of what it means to "steal" someone's music, legally or otherwise.


And as before, when I place your quotes right into my post, I expect you to completely ignore your contradictions. That's the tactic of someone who just wants to "win" an argument.

originally posted by: TWILITE22
a reply to: Astyanax

Regardless of how their music came to be...[I'm] sure any band that big will have these kind of legal issues...

--Reasonable. Level headed. A fair statement.


But there are some who find it only fitting that these matters be turned into non-sequitur logical fallacies of this type:

Claim A: After Led Zeppelin became famous by creating music influenced by early blues there were legal issues

Evidence: video comparisons, court cases with variety of outcomes

Conclusion: Led Zeppelin were frightful thieves guilty of plagiarism and copyright infringement.




And there are some who believe an argumentum ad hominem belongs in a case regarding plagiarism:

Claim A: It's been said Jimmy Page was a miser and a pedophile.

Evidence: anecdote over a sale of guitar picks, a nickname given to him by the manager of the band, relations with a 14-year-old

Conclusion: Jimmy Page must be guilty of plagiarism.


Then, when shown the above, they still insist that they are simply using "logical reasoning."