(CelebrityAccess) — The legal battle over Led Zeppelin’s ownership of their iconic hit Stairway To Heaven has come to an end, concluding six years of legal battles over the song’s origins after the United States Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
The legal challenge over the origins of the song date back to 2014 when the estate of Randy Wolfe, the late frontman of the band Spirit, accused Led Zepplin of lifting Stairway’s distinctive opening riff from the Spirit song “Taurus.”
The case, which has been one of the music industry’s most closely-watched disputes, held large ramifications for copyrights due to the fundamental nature music structure at issue.
Lawyers for Spirit contended that Led Zeppelin plagiarized the song after hearing Spirit perform it when the two bands played the same club in 1970.
However, music experts testified that the descending musical pattern used by both songs had been a common musical device in use for centuries.
A jury agreed and concluded that the two songs were not “not intrinsically similar” but the case was appealed on a number of procedural issues, including that the original jury was not allowed to listen to a comparison of the two songs.
In March, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the original ruling, paving the way for an appeal to the supreme court that was ultimately unsuccessful.
