Defense rests in Led Zeppelin copyright trial

Plant told a packed courtroom on Tuesday that he did not remember hanging out with members of the band Spirit after a Birmingham, England, show in 1970, though he said he and his wife were in a bad vehicle wreck and he has no memory of the evening.

Robert Plant made the courtroom “roar with laughter” during his testimony at the ‘Stairway To Heaven’ plagiarism trial.

Attorneys for both sides delivered their summations before an eight- member federal jury in downtown Los Angeles in a closely watched legal tussle over the genesis of one of rock music’s best-known songs.

Spirit’s former bass player previously testified that he had drunk beer with Plant and played snooker after the show at the Mother’s Club in 1970.

Plant testified earlier that he recalled writing the opening stanzas of “Stairway” in 1970 as he and Page sat by a fireplace in an English country manor house where the band recorded and rehearsed.

From there, Plant said, “it started rolling pretty fast”.

Lawyers for Page and Plant have asked the judge to throw out the case before it goes to the jury.

Also last week, a musicologist testified that any similarity between “Stairway To Heaven” and “Taurus” can also be found in music dating back more than 300 years. I can’t recall Spirit or anybody else playing there with the passing of time.

Wolfe’s estate is suing Page, Plant and their record label for copyright infringement, alleging they lifted the riff for the song’s introduction from the obscure 1968 instrumental “Taurus” by the band Spirit.

Led Zeppelin works that include “Stairway to Heaven” generated revenues of almost $60 million over the past five years, economist Michael Einhorn testified. Some of that work, however, included other songs and could be part of a 2008 deal that’s outside the statute of limitations.

As the defense continued, Page retook the stand to describe how the band worked together to build “Stairway” through its various stages during rehearsals Headley Grange.

‘I did have a bad auto accident, ‘ he said.

Anderson said the “descending chromatic scale” played by Page in the first moments of “Stairway” is merely a musical device, so common and unoriginal that “it belongs to everyone”.

Plant said he did not think it was a “problem” that Led Zeppelin covered other bands, including Spirit, at their early gigs in the late 1960s.

However, defense attorney Peter Anderson told the panel that the plaintiff never proved that the trust owned the copyright to “Stairway” or that Page and Plant were familiar with “Taurus” or that Page and Plant had ever heard Spirit perform in the few times the bands shared a concert bill in 1968 and 1969.

He said he didn’t even realize he owned Spirit’s first album that contained “Taurus”, until he looked through his collection after the comparisons surfaced.

Page said he imagined the song as being “very ambitious and also very long”.

Jones said he played the “Fresh Garbage” passage without knowing what it was or who it was by.

The band, originally called The New Yardbirds, had a touring obligation for Page’s previous band The Yardbirds, so they needed to come up with material quickly and often played cover songs. He said it was just something he heard that he thought was catchy.