Stairway to a Knock Off?

When looking at Led Zeppelin's famous song Stairway to Heaven and comparing it to the less popular song Taurus written by Spirit, it is apparent that there are many similarities between the two pieces. In the early days both bands toured together around the same time that Spirit had written Taurus. The band Spirit, claims that their song influenced Jimmy Page’s Stairway to Heaven. Stairway to Heaven is believed to be the most popular and valuable rock song of all time. This iconic song has touched everyone in some kind of way, from learning how to play it on a guitar or the final song at the high school dance. Zeppelin is still making millions off Stairway to Heaven, 334 million dollars as of 2008. While at the end of Randy California’s life, the guitarist and songwriter for Spirit, he was only surviving by “playing sitar at an Indian restaurant in exchange for food” (Bassett). While Led Zeppelin was enjoying sold out concerts and making millions, the defeated Spirit was struggling and could not afford to sue Zeppelin at the time. Before Randy California’s death, he stated that Zeppelin ripped off his song and requested some credit or money be put in place for the wrong doing. It makes me question Zeppelin’s integrity, considering that this is not the first rip off accusation against the band. Stairway to Heaven has a guitar solo that has also been linked to many other well-known songs, like All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix. Is it right for a band to gain fame by ripping off another song written by a long forgotten and disregarded band?

I believe that the evidence is not strong enough to conclude that one of the bands ripped off the other. At about a minute into the song, Taurus, the guitar solo is presented and is almost identical to Stairway to Heaven’s notorious opening guitar verse. Taurus is only two and a half minutes long, while Stairway to Heaven is much lengthier being that it is 10 minutes long. It also apparent that both songs use the same chord progression, descending and in a minor. This chord progression is seen in many other songs and has no copyright law. It is apparent that Led Zeppelin used the copying, transforming, and recombining method. By “copying” this chord progression and “transforming” it into their own. According to Gillian Hedden, Taurus and Stairway to Heaven use different melodies, making it difficult to link these songs together. Great works originate from the past, both Taurus and Stairway to Heaven follow the same chord progression as Sonata di Chittarra, e Violino, con il suo Basso Continuo. As stated by Guitar World, “the work was composed in 1659 […] and nearly the same melody” as the two rock songs. “Copying is how we learn, we can’t introduce anything now until we are fluent in the language of our domain, we do that through emulation” (Ferguson). Artists tend to use material from the past and draws on this to create their own works.

Determining whether a song is a knock-off or an original is very difficult. In regards to the certain guidelines of copyrighting in the music industry, legal trials are rare because there is dilemma between what is acceptable and what is not. As seen in the Zeppelin and Spirit trial, usually it is a battle over compensation from the original artist. At the end of these trials only one side wins, but both are affected by legal expenses and years of public scrutiny. Inspiration is what drives music artists to recreate ideas from the past. “Remixing” is what most of the media acquires in today’s era. I agree with the concept only if the artist gives credit to who deserves it.