Led Zeppelin cleared over ‘Stairway’ riff claim

The guitar riff Led Zeppelin used in the 1971 classic ‘Stairway to Heaven’ differed substantially from one the English band was accused of stealing from the US group Spirit, a jury found in a copyright infringement trial in Los Angeles.

The decision was a victory for Led Zeppelin, one of the top selling rock acts of all time, after an week-long trial in US district court in Los Angeles that had called into question the originality of their signature song.

The jury, in their second day of deliberations, found Led Zeppelin’s singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had access to Spirit’s 1967 song ‘Taurus’ but that the riff they were accused of taking was not intrinsically similar to the opening chords of ‘Stairway’.