Led Zeppelin Wins Long ‘Stairway to Heaven’ Copyright Case

The long road of a copyright suit over Led Zeppelin’s 1971 megahit “Stairway to Heaven” came to an end on Monday, when the United States Supreme Court announced that it had declined to hear the case.

The high court’s decision means that a ruling for Led Zeppelin in March by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will stand. That ruling affirmed Led Zeppelin’s victory at a trial in 2016 over a challenge led by a trustee representing “Taurus,” a 1968 song by the psychedelic band Spirit.

“Taurus,” written by Randy Wolfe — better known as Randy California, the nickname Jimi Hendrix gave him — has long drawn comparisons to the pastoral opening segment of “Stairway to Heaven,” a staple of rock radio that, by some estimates, has earned more than $500 million. The two songs share similar chord progressions and a bass line that descends along a chromatic scale.

When the case was filed in 2014, it may have seemed a run-of-the-mill copyright infringement fight, if an especially high-profile one. But the case came to embody some of the most contested questions in music law today, including exactly what is covered by the registration documents of old songs and whether copyright can be claimed over common chord progressions or short sequences of notes.