Danny Martindale/Getty ImagesAlthough court wasn’t in session Monday in the “Stairway to Heaven” copyright infringement trial, attorneys for Robert Plant and Jimmy Page filed papers asking a federal district court judge in Los Angeles to halt proceedings against them claiming that the plaintiff has failed to prove copyright infringement, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
At issue is whether the introduction to “Stairway” was copied from “Taurus,” a 1967 song by the band Spirit.
Monday’s motion requests that the judge cut the trial short because, it claims, the attorney for the trust of late Spirit guitarist Randy California hasn’t proved that the members of Led Zeppelin ever had access to “Taurus” or that there is substantial similarity between the two songs. The filing also says that the copyright registration for “Taurus” hasn’t been put into evidence, and questions whether the trustee owns the copyright in the first place.
Attorneys for Plant and Page also accused the plaintiff’s attorney of violating a pretrial order, and of trying to prejudice a fair trail by referring in court and in the press to the charitable nature of the late guitarist’s trust, and the amount of money Led Zeppelin was paid for rights to its back catalog.
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