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For those of you who are interested in this, the jury found that Led Zeppelin did not copy the intro to Stairway to Heaven.....
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Just dismiss it as a cash grab. They were hoping Zep will just settle out of court is what I'm guessing... they know they're pond scum for even trying.
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You know how many songs have similar chord progressions? I mean, how many ways are there to arrange a 3-chord song?
8^)
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Have Fun and Enjoy the Music
"Still Working the Problem"
I thought it was a travesty it went to trial. I think it taints the legacy of Randy California.
I just listened to the CNN article and heard the excerpts of the music.My background: I'm a 95% classical listener with strong opinions on compositional quality.
My opinion on the case: HTF did this ever remotely get to trial? A total waste of society's resources. There is nothing remotely like any copyright infringement.
The central difference: one sucks musically and the other doesn't. The "real" one has a clear combination of an interesting melody and more complex figuration and a harmonic logic driving to a phrasal cadence, a classic and successful pattern in tonal music. Both the lowest and highest notes independently present interesting sequences which resolve together.
The plaintiff's junk is a simple plucked sequence with less variation and a descending low note that has a jarring and crude final "modulation" (if it were to go anywhere further in that key, but it doesn't, it just dissolves bizzarely without a cadence)
Both are conventional 4 beat but the LZ has on the downbeat a bass anchors and then the melody on the highest note. The other starts the downbeat again with the low note, so you only really hear one thing happening: the low note descending sequentially and simplistically.
It's (almost) like comparing arpeggiated student noodling while warming up with the transcendent genius of the justifiably famous and ubiquitous Bach Prelude #1. Which has some similarity to the composition in question by demonstrating how to project a singable long melodic via a rising figure outlining nothing but a simple (or not so simple!) tonal chord in a combination of familiar and surprising progressions. The downbeats each 4/4 are the most important lowest and highest anchors and determine the harmony and melody. OK, in fact the Bach is literally the archetype for this.
The similarities lie only really in the lead instrumentation: an acoustic guitar being plucked, but this is only something which is physically idiomatic on the instrument. It would be like suing a symphonist for having a slow introduction to an allegro with a horn melody over tremelo strings or something generic like that.In fact, the melody & harmony of the Led Zeppelin is very close to the Catholic "Dies Irae", referring to the day of judgement and reappearance of Christ, far more than "Taurus".
Sviatoslav Richter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezZdbzreNcs
Edits: 06/23/16 06/23/16 06/23/16 06/23/16 06/23/16
Like we knew they would!
Akin to these (basically) law firms that buy up old patents and then try to find someone who has infringed on the forgotten patent and clog up the courts with their complaints. Like those disgusting debt collection firms that buy up old debt and try to trick people into paying debts that are legally uncollectable
ALSO akin to, I think it is CITIBANK, attempting to say they have copyrighted the word THANKS.
As I read elsewhere that string of chords was (obviously) not something SPIRIT came up with - an ordinary sequence in every way. Page should have taken his cues from Paul Simon and "steal" stuff from the 18th century or South African musicians. No chance of a suit there ...
Just wait for someone to patent urination and we have to pay a royalty every time ...
Our patent laws are becoming unhinged and it is no surprise copyrights will follow.
The irony is there is nothing terribly novel about rock music - the key to good rock music is making the old sound new again. If pure "creativity" was the goal we would be stuck listening to compositions even more boring and stupid than Stockhausen's.
It is the whole that matters, not the snippets. There is no comparison to the complexity of STAIRWAY in TAURUS. Not that I have any desire to listen to the bombastic thing.
Whenever I think of that song I think of the BUTTHOLE SURFER's HAIRWAY TO STEPHEN. Makes me laugh every time.
I like Dread Zeppelin's version.
am equally happy LZ was cleared in this ridiculous waste of time and energy.
"Once this was all Black Plasma and Imagination" -Michael McClure
Are they kidding us here ? Shit like this makes me think they are distracting us from something, like them picking our pocket every day.
And Stairway To Heaven and whatever it derived from was in public domain for a long time. If someone owns it now and can sue, Just who the hell did they buy it from ? And I am part of the public, where is my check ?
I heard somewhere, something like Michael Jackson bought the rights to all the old Beatles songs. Just who did he pay for that ?
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To blast "Celebration Day" when I get home tonight from work.
Aside from that so much time has passed, and even considering the possibility that they built off it, even unintentionally, the other song wasn't repressed or silenced in any way. The band that wrote the other song was as free to succeed or fail as any other band.
Waited 50+ years to complain about it did you? Seems like sour grapes to me.
I've read articles stating Randy California(only Jimi could can come up with a cool name like that) could care less.
It's the estate and its lawyers that are reaching for air and CASH$$$$!!!
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