Taurus - Spirit vs Lep Zep Stairway

Now that the lawsuit is out of the way - lets have the real debate from those in the know.

Did Jimmy and Bob steal it, that is the question?

I feel sorry for Randy California as he was not around to make comment for the hearing............

Given the Plant/ Page history of ripping off tunes I'm surprised that got away with it, George Harrison would be very dark on this in his grave.......

^ not even the intro, think your fandom of Zep is clouding your judgement, it should be listed as Inspired by Randy California

There is the cash in aspect and the Dazed and Confused case probably helped the surviving Spirit copywrite holders in making there claim however, Led Zep toured with Spirit early on when Spirit performed Taurus on stage and Page was obviously influenced by what he heard and wasn't slow in using others music and tunes- this is just another example of a Led Zep rip off.

I voted the former. The first moment i heard taurus, I immediately thought it sounded just like stairway to heaven. I looked it up and found out that many others felt the same and then page says he doesn't even really know the song taurus is crazy when they toured with spirit. Besides, Ive never like Zep so mine is probably a bit biased

Listening now again and I'm sorry but that is a standard chord progression used for centuries, so much that I would classify it as public domain to the extent that it has been, and continues to be, utilized by countless composers and songwriters.   In fact it is a simple, even amateurish progression that first-year players learn, lift, discover, or "write", only to realize years later it is uninteresting and old hat.   Further, the Stairway riff is itself also based on the same tired old descending arp but with a much more satisfying over-melody and resolution.

And what of the final A-G-F-G riff ?: I've heard them accused of stealing that from Dylan's 'All Along the Watchtower'.   But any seasoned musician will tell you that's rubbish because that basic combination is so common that it is virtually untraceable as an original phrase and Dylan himself probably learned it years earlier along with tons of other stuff when he was learning to play a friggin guitar. 

Magnum Vaeltaja wrote: I'm not a Zeppelin fan at all (so I'm not "tainted" in my opinion), but the "Stairway is rip-off" claim is bunk. As someone who's actually taken the time to noodle around on a guitar, messing around haphazardly with different chord progressions and riffs, I can guarantee you that passages from both "Taurus" and "Stairway" are not at all difficult to come up with independently. This isn't even getting into the fact that the "plagiarised" section in question is about 10 seconds long. Apparently we're to believe that 10 seconds of a guitar arpeggio inspired 8 minutes of music, spanning multiple distinct melodies heard nowhere in the "original" and a hard rock guitar solo? Sure. Plus, a 2 minute instrumental ain't gonna write 7 verses of lyrics...