Led Zeppelin Loses First Round in Stairway to Heaven Lawsuit A judge has denied classic British rock band Led Zeppelins first attempt to defend a lawsuit claiming that their 1971 track Stairway to Heaven was lifted from a 1968 song by rock band Spirit called Taurus. The ruling had nothing to do with the merits of the case, but rather a pre-trial motion to dismiss on the question of jurisdiction. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Led Zeppelin had challenged whether the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, where the suit was filed, had the right to rule on the case. The individual defendants are British citizens residing in England, own no property in Pennsylvania and have no contacts with Pennsylvania, let alone ties sufficient to render them essentially at home here, they argued. However, Judge Juan Sanchez sided with the plaintiff, who, in an amendment to the lawsuit, said that the defendants make millions of dollars from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by directly targeting this district for the exploitation of Stairway to Heaven through CD sales, digital downloading, radio and television play, advertising, marketing, concert performances, other performances, licensing, and otherwise targeting resident individuals and businesses to profit off the exploitation of Stairway to Heaven.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 06:46:02 +0000
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