Led Zeppelin was handed a major legal victory, with Rolling Stone reporting the U.S. Supreme Court announcing it will not hear the copyright dispute over the band's 1971 song “Stairway To Heaven.” The decision upheld a recent Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that found the Zeppelin classic, “did not infringe on the band Spirit‘s 1968 instrumental track, 'Taurus.'” The song in question was written by the late-Randy California, whose goven name was Randy Craig Wolfe.
Francis Malofiy, the lawyer for Michael Skidmore, the trustee of the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust, was disappointed with the ruling and told the magazine: “What you have here is a big win for the multi-billion dollar industry against the creatives. I love Led Zeppelin, as a man, and I can separate my appreciation for them as four band members playing amazing music, but they’re the greatest art thieves of all time and they got away with it again today. They won on a technicality. But they absolutely stole that piece of work.”
The dispute over “Stairway To Heaven” had made its way last September to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal in San Francisco before an 11-judge panel, which ruled the suit could proceed to the Supreme court.