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© 2020 AFPLed Zeppelin prevails in 'Stairway' copyright battle
By BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI LOS ANGELES©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
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© 2020 AFP
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JeffLee
Everyone was a plagiarist before today’s strict conditions over copyright and intellectual property came into being. Early blues and jazz musicians, including the oldest legends, constant stole and swapped each other’s riffs.
Blues, in particular, is very limited in terms of note combinations and chord progressions. Pick up a guitar and play any riff you want, and you’ll be plagiarizing dozens of others.
Hervé L'Eisa
Finally! There was a great video on YouTube that very clearly detailed both the similarities and the differences between the two songs, but of course the Overlords had it removed, sent to the Memory Hole of censorship.
ohara
Good.
Sid
I love Led Zeppelin, but I also loved Spirit, and Randy California was greatly underrated. He never got the success he deserved. In fact, even before the court case I was thinking that Zep had ripped off Randy's music. It's not as if Plant and Page need the money.
By the way, Randy California drowned saving his young son from drowning. It's not relevant to the case, but was somehow the final piece of bad luck which dogged him all his life. The royalties from his music go to funding a charity helping underprivileged children get a music education.
ohara
They say the chord sequence has been around forever but fail to name a single other song using it.
My Funny Valentine (the jazz standard) - Rodgers and Hart
Chim Chim Cheree - From Mary Poppins
Michelle - the Beatles
Summer Rain - Johnny Rivers
Composer Giovanni Buttista used the “stairway” chord progession 370 years ago.
There are many more examples.
Toasted Heretic
Music has always borrowed or paid hommage to what has gone before. Can't take sides in this, personally, as loved both bands in question.
Hervé L'Eisa
But, I did find a different video of a notational analysis that would be very informative for those who can't hear the difference between the two songs.
https://youtu.be/PCEg9gMJakU
https://youtu.be/2UNbXL27cwc
starpunk
Ripoff? No way, Jose. it's like that stupid case against George Harrison which was motivated by personal reasons only.
What about that stupid 'sampling' and looping it up? That's stealing and it makes unoriginal crap.
Besides, Robert Plant wrote the lyrics which make this song unique and he is a smart brilliant lyric writer. Look at his solo career and you'll see.
Glad the survivors of LZ won this.
Mr Kipling
I really can’t understand how anyone listening to the part in question from both tracks could fail to see they were the same. You hear this tune every night for a month then two years later it comes into your head?
Not that it matters, one of the greatest bands of all time!
Vanessa Carlisle
Pick up a guitar and play any riff you want, and you’ll be plagiarizing dozens of others.
Seems you did not read the link I posted despite replying to me. What they did was no accident, nor were the people they stole from obscure.
I am not a fan of the current copyright situation either. I think it should be enough to simply credit the people whose work was used and not have to ask permission for what, yes, so many other people could very well come up with on their own as, yes, as you say, there are limitations musicians work within so overlap is guaranteed.
I don't begrudge them the victory. I am just saying its a lie. But they have to lie, because current copyright rules are stupid.
Vanessa Carlisle
I love Led Zeppelin tunes but they were one of the most prolific plaigiarisers to ever enter the music industry, stealing from Willie Dixon, Joan Baez, Jake Holmes and others. Led Zeppelin are giants standing on the backs of other giants.
They say the chord sequence has been around forever but fail to name a single other song using it. They won because they are Led Zeppelin. I would have sooner found for Men at Work who actually were falsely ruled to have plaigiarized.
https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/led-zeppelins-10-boldest-rip-offs-223419/