‘Stairway to Heaven’ legal fight over

LOS ANGELES: British rock band Led Zeppelin has effectively won a longrunning legal battle over claims it stole the opening guitar riff from its signature 1971 song Stairway to Heaven.

The band was handed victory after the US Supreme Court declined to take up the case, meaning that a March 2020 decision by a US appeals court in Led Zeppelin’s favour will stand.

Lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had been accused in the sixyear long case of lifting the riff — one of the bestknown openings in rock music — from a song called Taurus, written by the late Randy Wolfe of the US band Spirit.

Wolfe, who performed as Randy California, drowned in 1997, and the case was brought by a trustee for his estate. It has been one of the music industry’s most closely watched copyright cases, Francis Malofiy, who represented Wolfe’s estate, said Led Zeppelin ‘‘won on a technicality’’ and the lawsuit had accomplished its goal. — Reuters