「天国への階段」盗作訴訟、レッド・ツェッペリン側が勝訴

【ロサンゼルスＡＦＰ＝時事】英ロックバンド、レッド・ツェッペリンの代表曲「天国への階段」のイントロ部分が盗作だとして訴えられた裁判で、米連邦最高裁は5日、審理を行わない判断を下した。高裁は今年3月、盗用ではないと判断しており、音楽業界が注視していた長年の法廷闘争はレッド・ツェッペリン側の勝訴で終結した。（写真は米ホワイトハウスでの行事に出席した英ロックバンド、レッド・ツェッペリンのロバート・プラント＜左＞とジミー・ペイジ）
　訴えていたのは、１９６０年代に活動していたロサンゼルスの５人組サイケデリックバンド「スピリット」の関係者。「天国への階段」（１９７１年発表）のイントロ部分のギターリフは、スピリットの楽曲「トーラス」の盗用だとして訴え出ていた。
　ツェッペリンのギタリスト、ジミー・ペイジは２０１６年、問題となっているギターリフについて、「ずっと前からある」ものだと証言していた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/10/07-13:08）

The US Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up a copyright claim over Led Zeppelin's classic Stairway to Heaven, capping a long-running legal dispute over the song.
A lower court in California last March had ruled that the British rockers had not swiped the song's opening riff from Taurus, which was written by Randy Wolfe of a Los Angeles band called Spirit.
The decision on Monday by the country's highest court not to hear the case definitively ends the legal challenges which had been closely watched by the music industry.
Led Zeppelin had initially won the case in 2016, with the court at the time finding no proof that the 1971 classic breached the copyright of Taurus.
However that ruling was overturned on appeal in 2018.
Stairway is estimated to have grossed $3.4 million during a five-year period at issue during the civil trial.
Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page -- who was sued along with the group's singer Robert Plant and another surviving bandmate John Paul Jones -- testified in 2016 that the chord sequence in question had been around forever.
Wolfe's trustee, Michael Skidmore, filed the case in 2014 on behalf of his late friend who long maintained he deserved credit for Stairway but drowned in 1997 having never taken legal action over the song.
Experts called by the plaintiffs at the lower court trial said there were substantial similarities between key parts of the two songs, but defense witnesses testified the chord pattern used in the melancholic guitar intro to Stairway was so commonplace that copyright didn't apply.