Posted by Aitana Robinson.
The battle between Spirit and Led Zeppelin continues in the copyright infringement case over “Stairway to Heaven.” This past July 8th the District Court of California- Western Division, found in favor of the defendants, Zeppelin. On the 15th of March, Attorney Francis Malfoy filled in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals representing Michael Skidmore, the Spirit guitarist, in the hope that the appeals court will correct the mistakes of the trial court.
At the heart of the lawsuit is the accusation that Led Zeppelin copies a riff found on Spirit’s song “Taurus,” which proceeded “Stairway to Heaven.” Skidmore’s appeal is based off the assumed error that “the trial court refused to let the jury hear the full and complete composition of ‘Taurus’ embodied in the sound recordings…”
Skidmore’s attorney complained about the court “making a series of erroneous instructions on the scope of copyright protection[,] . . . limiting plaintiff’s trial time to 10 hours violated due process and was not even close to an adequate about of time to try this case,” and finally, that “the court seriously erred when defining originality.” Skidmore has asked the 9th Circuit court to reverse the verdict and call for a retrial.
Aitana is a communications major at the School of Communications and the Arts, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.