ZEPPELIN LAUNCH ‘STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN’ APPEAL

There’s been a new twist in the ongoing legal battle over ‘Stairway To Heaven’.

In 2016, a jury found that Zeppelin hadn’t plagiarised Spirit’s ‘Taurus’, as was being claimed by Michael Skidmore, the trustee for the estate of the late Spirit songwriter Randy California, who died in 1997. Two years later, a three-judge panel at the 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals found that the jury at the original trial were improperly instructed on various issues, opening up the possibility of a second trial.  But now, Zeppelin’s lawyers asked for a larger group of judges to look again at the case. Now, this has been granted, and 11 judges will sit on a panel to assess the case in San Francisco during September.