[author: Jade Adia Harvey]
You've heard it, you likely love it, and it's probably the first melody that you ever tried to learn on the guitar to impress your friends. "Stairway to Heaven" has been called the greatest rock song of all time by music journalists and passionate listeners across generations. Led Zeppelin first released the song in 1971, although it took a couple of years before the hit rose to its current anthemic, almost mythical, status. That said, nearly 40 years after its iconic release, and after a 2016 jury trial that Rolling Stone magazine called the rock-and-roll trial of the century, the full 9th Circuit has cleared Led Zeppelin of alleged copyright infringement. In October, the Supreme Court denied the plaintiff's petition for certiorari.
In early March 2020, an en banc panel of the 9th Circuit rejected a high-profile copyright lawsuit alleging "Stairway to Heaven" infringed a 1967 instrumental called "Taurus" by the band Spirit. Skidmore, as Trustee for the Randy Craig Wolf Trust v. Led Zeppelin, 952 F.3d 1051 (9th Cir. 2020). Within a few weeks, other courts began relying on the en banc decision to resolve similar infringement cases. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California relied on Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin in ruling for defendants in cases involving Katy Perry (and others) and her hit song "Dark Horse," The Weeknd (and others) and the song "A Lonely Night," and Secret Garden's "You Raise Me Up." The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York also relied on Skidmore to limit the scope of a copyright claim against Ed Sheeran's...
