• Led Zeppelin, including guitarist Jimmy Page and singer Robert Plant, must go back to trial in a lawsuit that accuses the classic rock grandees of stealing the opening chords of 1971's "Stairway to Heaven" from an obscure 1968 instrumental. In a turnabout in a challenge to the authenticity of one of rock's most famous songs, a federal appeals court in San Francisco ruled Friday that a 2016 trial wasn't fair to the group Spirit and its late guitarist, Randy California, who wrote the song "Taurus." Two years ago, a federal court jury in Los Angeles found Led Zeppelin did not copy the famous riff. When the case goes to a retrial, jurors will be able to listen to the album version of "Taurus" -- which was not allowed in the first trial in 2016, drawing a protest from the lawyer for California's trust. Page and Plant both testified at the first trial about the band's formative years, its U.S. touring in the late 1960s and the genesis of "Stairway," saying their creation was an original. Music experts testified that the descending chromatic scale in "Taurus," which the band was accused of having copied, is exceedingly common in popular music and isn't subject to copyright protection. The judge who presided over the 2016 trial ruled that the jury could hear renditions of "Taurus" performed only by music experts -- some live in the courtroom -- instead of the recorded version, because copyright protection at the time of composition applied only to the sheet music. Francis Malofiy, the attorney representing California, whose real name was Randy Wolfe, hailed Friday's ruling as an opportunity to affirm his contribution to rock 'n' roll history. "Led Zeppelin obviously copied Taurus by Randy California, a musician they knew well in the 1960s -- as well as several other songs from other musical pioneers."
• A Texas artist is suing Val Kilmer, saying the actor co-opted his work. Bale Creek Allen says in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that he had been creating golden-laden tumbleweed sculptures for years and selling them in galleries in Austin, Texas, and Santa Fe, N.M., when he noticed Kilmer had begun selling "identical" pieces. Before the discovery, Allen says Kilmer had approached him about the sculptures, which the Batman Forever and Tombstone star ultimately said he could not afford. When the artist asked Kilmer to stop selling the pieces, the actor did not respond. Kilmer, who used to own a ranch outside of Santa Fe, began selling his own artwork a couple of years ago. He could not immediately be reached for comment. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in New Mexico, seeks unspecified damages.
A Section on 09/29/2018