Two years after being sued for copyright infringement, members of Led Zeppelin will climbing a stairway to a courthouse on Tuesday, in an effort to prove that that they didn’t steal from another song in writing their signature hit “Stairway to Heaven.”
A lot of legal back-and-forth has occurred in those two years. In order to get you up to speed on what could very well be the musical trial of the century, TheWrap delivers an essential guide to what’s going on and what might happen.
So what’s this all about, anyway? In 2014, Michael Skidmore sued Led Zeppelin, claiming that “Stairway” infringes on the 1968 Spirit song “Taurus.” Skidmore is the trustee of the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust, named for the real name of Spirit frontman Randy California, who died in 1997. Skidmore contends that Led Zeppelin would be familiar with “Taurus,” as they played a number of gigs with Spirit and even covered the group’s song “Fres ...
