The suit was filed in 2014 by Michael Skidmore, the trustee of the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust, who asserted that the iconic riff was stolen from the 1968 Spirit song 'Taurus'.

 

CNBC.com reports that the verdict in Los Angeles settles a point that music fans have debated for decades but didn't find its way to court until two years ago, when the trustee for the late Randy Craig Wolfe filed a copyright lawsuit.

 

The trust claimed that Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page lifted a passage that Wolfe, better known as Randy California, wrote for 'Taurus,' a short work he recorded with his band Spirit in 1968.

 

Page and singer Robert Plant, who wrote the 'Stairway' lyrics, said their creation was an original. In several hours of often-animated and amusing testimony, they described the craft behind one of rock's best-known songs, all the while denying knowledge of one of the genre's least-known tunes.

 

Plant cracked up the courtroom when said he didn't remember most people he had hung out with over the years.

 

In closing arguments, Francis Malofiy, a lawyer representing Wolfe's trust, criticized Page and Plant's "selective" memories and "convenient" truths on the witness stand.

 

In trying to show the works were substantially similar, the trust had the tricky task of relying on sheet music because that's what is filed with the U.S. Copyright Office.

 

Jurors were not played the "Taurus" recording, which contains a section that sounds very similar to the instantly recognizable start of "Stairway." Instead, they were played guitar and piano renditions by musicians on both sides of the case. Not surprisingly, the plaintiff's version on guitar sounded more like "Stairway" than the defense version on piano.

 

Experts for both sides dissected both compositions, agreeing mainly that they shared a descending chord progression that dates back three centuries as a building block in lots of songs.

 

The trust's experts, however, went further and noted several other similarities that made the two works unlike the many other tunes they were compared to, including "My Funny Valentine," and The Beatles' "Michelle."