Members of legendary rock band Led Zeppelin face a May 10 trial over claims that they ripped off another artist to make the iconic song “Stairway to Heaven.”
Lawyers for band members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones could go to trial after failing to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the trustee of the late Randy Craig Wolfe, better known as Randy California of the band Spirit, who played with Jimi Hendrix in the 1960s. Wolfe drowned off the coast of Hawaii in 1997, but a trustee for his estate has sued Led Zeppelin and the three band members, plus music publishers Super Hype Publishing Inc. and Warner Music Group Corp. The 2014 suit claims that Led Zeppelin, which opened for Spirit in the 1960s, copied a musical composition Wolfe wrote called “Taurus.”
