Surprised by that, considering they've lost a few similar cases over the years apparently.
Led Zeppelin. BOSS
- Thread starter roydo
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roydo
in memoriam - 1965-2024
They didnt get to court, well, not in this way. Over the years they have altered writing credits on reissues, and made sure that some credit went to the original writers.
This one was claiming they actually copied a few chords, (who hasnt?), but the end result was nothing that the original song was like.
Not sure if Dazed and Confused has ever been contested. That was a total lift.
ToffeeDoug
Player Valuation: £35m
Dazed and Confused was lifted by Jimmy Page in his Yardbirds' days and then adapted again for Led Zep. Page was a pretty notorious lifter and pincher. He had a copy of the particular Taurus album in his record collection but claimed never to have listened to it!
The STH case is very different to other songs like The Lemon Song, Whole Lotta Love, Babe One More Time etc. The latter were acknowledged at the time in live performances as having come from other sources (Sonny Boy Williamson, Blind Willie Dixon etc) but not so on the album credits for the same songs. Years later Led Zep righted that wrong after court action against them. With STH and Randy California it is different because Led Zep accepted in the past that the Taurus song did influence STH (as the chord sequence had been around for ever and Led Zep heard it in 1969 on their most infamous US tour when sharing gigs with Taurus) but there was no copyright case to answer as California was not contracted to any one and 'only' a session musician. As such it was a legal dispute about damages not about culpability.
The STH case is very different to other songs like The Lemon Song, Whole Lotta Love, Babe One More Time etc. The latter were acknowledged at the time in live performances as having come from other sources (Sonny Boy Williamson, Blind Willie Dixon etc) but not so on the album credits for the same songs. Years later Led Zep righted that wrong after court action against them. With STH and Randy California it is different because Led Zep accepted in the past that the Taurus song did influence STH (as the chord sequence had been around for ever and Led Zep heard it in 1969 on their most infamous US tour when sharing gigs with Taurus) but there was no copyright case to answer as California was not contracted to any one and 'only' a session musician. As such it was a legal dispute about damages not about culpability.
Not surprised by the outcome of this case, it was such a standard chord progression. Not as common as I-IV-V, but still common. As in:
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