Copyright of a musical work, gives the owner of the music the right to make, sell and distribute copies, make new works and publicly perform the music. When looking at music copyright claims throughout music history, claims range from plagiarism due to specific musical theory (Spirit vs. Led Zeppelin) to cases that involve two songs that have a similar “feel” and in fact nothing to do with the plagiarism of lyrics of sheet music (Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams).
Comparing the cases of ‘Spirit vs. Led Zeppelin’ and ‘Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams’ ; Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ 1971, houses one of the most iconic guitar instrumentals in rock music history. However in 2014 the estate of late musician Randy Wolfe of the band Spirit filed a suit claiming that the song plagiarised the late musician’s song ‘Taurus’ 1968. Sonically the resemblance of the two songs cannot be denied when listened to, this is due to the harmony and music theory of both songs. Both ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and ‘Taurus’ are built up of a descending chromatic four chord progression, due to musical theory this specific progression contributes to why the two riffs sound so similar.
An interesting factor of this case is the district court’s decision to not allow the sound recordings of both songs to be played for the jury. This is due to the 1909 Copyright Act (which applies to sheet music) and the 1976 Copyright Act (which applies to sound recordings). Additionally if it could have been proven that Led Zeppelin had access to the song ‘Taurus’, the similarities between the songs wouldn’t need to be as obvious. This is due to the ‘inverse ratio rule’ which covers that ‘if one party can prove a high degree of access to a certain work, the less substantial the similarities need to be in order to prove infringement’; however in this case the judge did not instruct the jury on the inverse ratio rule and whether or not Led Zeppelin had access to the song prior to writing ‘Stairway to Heaven’ in 1971 despite the bands touring together in the late sixties in addition to Page admitting during trial that he owned a copy of the Spirit album which featured ‘Taurus’.
The case was settled in 2016 with the verdict being that the songs had ‘no substantial similarity’. An appeal was launched again in 2018 but it was confirmed in March 2020 that Page and Plant had not stolen the riff.
Arguably the most high-profile claim in recent years is the case of ‘Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams’ which received a different outcome to the case of ‘Spirit vs. Led Zeppelin’. The two songs were compared specifically on the ‘feel’ and the use of the same instrumentation; there is no plagiarism of lyrics or sheet music. When ‘Blurred Lines’ was released in 2013, Marvin Gaye’s estate alleged that Williams and Thicke’s song infringed the copyrights in the compositions ‘Sexy Ways’ and ‘Got To Give It Up’.
Filed in 2014, the copyright infringement case lasted for two years despite the songs not having any music theory similarities, and the final settlement was $5.3 million awarded to the Gaye estate and a 50% royalty split for all future royalties on the song ‘Blurred Lines’. This verdict is one of the biggest payouts in music copyright history and also had the potential to change the songwriting industry in relation to copyright infringements and actions due to how this case established that a songs overall ‘vibe’ or feel’ can be protected not just the actual music and lyrics but copyright laws remain the same as it was.
When looking at both of these cases, it raises the question of whether ‘Spirit vs. Led Zeppelin’ was a fair settlement, considering that ‘Marvin Gaye vs. Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams’ settled on one of the biggest payouts of all time purely due to plagiarism of a ‘vibe’; when the claim in relation to musical chord progression and theory based plagiarism between ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and ‘Taurus’ is much more striking and resulted in the songs having ‘no substantial similarities’.
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