Monday, October 5, 2020

its a classic

 

The music industry is  frought with stealing and sampling and corruption and i am sure it's not the only one  ....there has  been hundreds ........but its  a classic ....and well you know  what you can you see  ........i am glad  although it was not my fav led zeppelin record .......mine's was a  whole lotta love ....but each to his own ........


Led Zeppelin Wins ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Copyright Battle as Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Case

Jem Aswad and Gene Maddaus

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up the long-running copyright battle over Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” leaving in place a ruling that rejected infringement allegations over the 1971 song.

The justices denied a petition aimed at reviving the case, ending six years of litigation over claims that the song’s writers, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant, plagiarized the song’s iconic intro from the 1968 song “Taurus” by the group Spirit.

The ruling follows a March victory for the group in which the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict finding the song did not infringe on “Taurus.”

The 9th Circuit ruling was also a significant win for the music industry, which has felt itself fighting a losing battle against frivolous copyright suits since the “Blurred Lines” trial in 2015. The appeals court overturned the so-called “inverse ratio rule,” a precedent that has governed copyright cases in the 9th Circuit for the last 43 years.

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To prove copyright infringement, a plaintiff must show that the alleged infringer had access to the plaintiff’s work, and that the two works are “substantially similar.” The inverse ratio rule — which had not been adopted in other circuits — held that the more access was shown, the less similarity was required to establish infringement. The rule has been a thorn in the side of defendants — including record labels and major artists — for decades.

In overturning the rule, the appeals court noted that the idea of “access” has become diluted in the digital age, as millions of works are readily available on Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify. The court also held that the rule has the effect of establishing a lower burden of proof for infringement of popular works.

“It was a terrible rule,” said Ed McPherson, an attorney who filed an amicus brief in support of Led Zeppelin, on behalf of songwriters, producers and musicians. “If you have a lot of access, that shouldn’t mean there should be a lesser standard to prove copyright infringement. It’s never made sense to me.”

The court also pushed back on the claims of similarity in the Led Zeppelin case, in an opinion that should hearten critics of the “Blurred Lines” decision.

“We have never extended copyright protection to just a few notes,” the court held. “Instead we have held that ‘a four-note sequence common in the music field’ is not the copyrightable expression in a song.”

The Zeppelin case began in 2014, when journalist Michael Skidmore filed suit on behalf of the estate of Randy Wolfe, the late frontman of the band “Spirit.” The lawsuit alleged that the iconic opening instrumental riff in “Stairway to Heaven” was lifted from Spirit’s 1968 song “Taurus.”

A jury ruled against the plaintiffs in 2016, but a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived the case in September 2018. The panel held that Judge Gary Klausner had given the wrong jury instructions, and ordered a new trial.

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I GREW UP WITH CASSTTE TAPES .....

  I grew up with cassette tapes   they were  defining part of  my  child hood ......you could do a lot with them  ....but the  times  have  ...