[Closed] Any Musicians in the House? Stairway to Heaven Not a Rip Off

Can't watch youtube at work but I think the judge got this one right as far as I remember the two songs. the intro to stairway is recognisable but its still just a variant on Am--G/B--C

The arguments around copyright of songs is a big tricky subject, have a look at the Adam Neely videos for the spuriousness of claims nowadays. It's getting to the point where lawyers are arguing about chord sequences and two note riffs which is just daft IMO.

Also there are a number of lawsuits being brought by legal teams on behalf of artists who have either deceased or have sold their rights which is pretty mental (Marvin Gaye vs Ed Sheeran is a prime example, the rights to Marvin's songs have been bought by a venture capital fund who are looking for anything close to go and make money from) because copyright is designed to provide income for the creator before passing into fair use (and go and google Disney and fair use for how they've stretched the definition...)

There's still a place for copyright but this isn't helpful.

Maybe Led Zep should sue RHCP = the outro of Under The Bridge is a clear rip-off of the outro riff to Stairway ! 🙂

Yes it’s a bit of a rip off. Most music is based on what came before anyway so what he stole the riff. The guy who originally wrote it is dead now.

The guy who originally wrote it is dead now.

Dang. So now who can the ghost of Davey Graham sue?

Sad though that Page didn’t credit Jansch for this

This guy has mapped every possible melody (about a billion or so) and is now copyrighting them all.

I seem to remember that Led Zeppelin were pretty good at ripping off other peoples tunes back in the day - Whole Lotta Love was copied from a Small Faces song (itself a copy) and they didn't credit the original artists of some of the bluesy stuff they did (altered slightly). I may be wrong. For all his faults, at least Eric Clapton credited the old blues guys.

My friend Joe, who has been an expert witness at many music copyright disputes, wrote about this a while back:

Linky

The verdict yesterday is the correct one.

That is spot-on for me ^

What didn't add up was that I read Taurus supported Led Zep on tour, but JPJ said in a hearing that he wasn't familiar with the band.

What didn’t add up was that I read Taurus supported Led Zep on tour, but JPJ said in a hearing that he wasn’t familiar with the band.

Probably because the band was Spirit, who did, and the song was called Taurus...

Yeah soz that's what I meant

TBF would you even expect JPJ to remember who supported them? Being Led Zep, not the Monkees.

That blog post is excellent!

Led Zep* had an entire career based on listening to others music then doing their own version of it.Good for them - that's kind of how music gets made

Much as I love this:

...I'm glad I live in a world where this exists:

I Love this series which talks about these things:

https://www.everythingisaremix.info/watch-the-series

I seem to remember that Bob Dylan claimed he'd written "House of the Rising Sun", and that Simon and Garfunkel said they'd written "Scarborough Fair". Now that's dodgy behaviour.

*Well, every musician ever, really.

What a fantastic blog post. I love reading when someone really knows what they are talking about. The lack of ascending melody would do it for me as that is what you mainly hear in your head when you think about the intro

And this was very funny as well:

Fun project – try singing Stairway in 3/4 along with Dick Van Dyke here (chim chim cheree) – you’ll get almost halfway through verse 1 before it starts to break down. And if you find that you enjoy singing Stairway to Heaven in 3/4 time with Dick Van Dyke providing the countermelody, you can do the same thing with Hushabye Mountain from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.]

ok here's another good one - chords to Hey Joe is also the chorus of the Time Warp 🙂

If you listen to them, they do sound kinda similar.
If you try and hum the tune (melody), they don't.

I seem to remember that Bob Dylan claimed he’d written “House of the Rising Sun”, and that Simon and Garfunkel said they’d written “Scarborough Fair”. Now that’s dodgy behaviour.

And then Dylan took Scarborough Fair and wrote Girl From the North Country...
I watched a doco about Eric Burdon the other week, who said the reason he fell out with Alan Price was that Price took the writing credit for House of the Rising Sun without anyone else knowing until they saw it on the record label..

As for Stairway, here's Eric Clapton, 1974

[Eric Burdon] said the reason he fell out with Alan Price was that Price took the writing credit for House of the Rising Sun without anyone else knowing

That must be credit for the arrangement I think - House of the Rising Sun has been around forever
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_the_Rising_Sun#Origin_and_early_versions

This is a great video of the Animals version: you can actually feel Alan Price seethe each time the camera follows the rest of the group around the studio leaving him out of shot. Unsurprisingly it finishes with him at the front - can you imagine the hissy fit that would have happened otherwise?

I’ll just leave this here:

4 Chords:

Thanks, this ^ is great, I've never seen it before.

It reminded me of an older rant:

That must be credit for the arrangement I think

There was a shot of the label at centre of the record saying “Words and Music by Alan Price”. So he got all the royalties.

“Words and Music by Alan Price”

He's a dodgy git. As I said, the song had been around for over a century - listen to Woodie Guthrie's version, it's recognisably the same song

Wikipedia says:

Arranging credit went only to Alan Price. According to Burdon, this was simply because there was insufficient room to name all five band members on the record label, and Alan Price's first name was first alphabetically. However, this meant that only Price received songwriter's royalties for the hit, a fact that has caused bitterness among the other band members ever since

That seems more likely - I cannot believe even Alan Price would have the chutzpah to claim it as an original composition.

There’s a lot of releases that say trad arr. Price but not all of them.
https://images.app.goo.gl/bobA2nQJqfMWRLw19

Going off at a tangent slightly:

https://www.lowestoftjournal.co.uk/news/iconic-song-has-links-to-lowestoft-1-4510727

The bar and beer pumps from the Rising Sun were liberated by my Granddad and now reside in my Mum's shed.