Randy Skidmore: Randy Craig Wolfe Trust

Michel Skidmore, who is the plaintiff in this case, is a trustee in the Randy Craig Wolfe Trust. Randy Craig Wolfe, a guitarist, started a band named Spirit with four other musicians: Mark Andes (bass), John “Jay” Ferguson (vocals), John Locke (keyboard), and Ed Cassidy (drums) in the year 1967. Spirit released its self-titled debut album Spirit in January 1968, which broke Billboard’s Top 40. On Spirit’s self-titled album was a unique 2 minute and 37 second instrumental titled “Taurus” which was written by Randy Craig Wolfe in the summer of 1967. The song has an ethereal, distinct plucked-guitar line and melody.
Michael Skidmore claims that Led Zeppelin was greatly inspired from Spirit. He claims that Jimmy Patrick Page, guitarist of Led Zeppelin

said in an interview in 1972 that Spirit’s performances were “very good” and struck him on an “emotional level”. According to Michael Skidmore ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was greatly inspired from Spirit’s Taurus and parts of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ are identical to Taurus.
Michael Skidmore filled a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin on 31/May/2014 and demanded share of profit and right of attribution for Randy Craig Wolfe in the song ‘Stairway to Heaven’.
Issues : 1. Weather Randy Craig Wolfe has copyright over Taurus or not-
The plaintiff claimed that “Taurus” was registered with the Copyright Office on 02/05/1968 (Reg. No. EU0000035222), and renewed on 01/11/1996 (Reg. No. RE0000725888. Copyright registration of “Taurus” lists Randy Craig Wolfe as the author and copyright claimant. He further claimed that since after the death of Randy in 2002, the rights have passed on to the randy Craig Wolfe trust, he as a trustee becomes beneficial owner of the royalty rights and has a locus standi in this case.
Defendants claimed that the copyright of this song was owned by a non-party, Hollenback Music. Holeenback entered into a contract with Randy where he assigned the rights of the composition to Hollenback in return for a royalty. The defendants further claimed that the copyright of Taurus was registered under the 1909 copyright act. The 1909 Act required deposit of one complete copy of the musical work which had to be the sheet music and not the sound recording. Therefore sheet music of Taurus is deemed to define the scope of copyrighted composition.
Issue 2-Whether the defendant had access to plaintiff’s work-
The plaintiff claimed that Led Zeppelin had access to Spirit’s Taurus because Led Zeppelin started touring United States in 1968, opening for Spirit. It was this time that they grew familiar with Taurus and other compositions of Spirit.
Issue 3-Whether the defendant’s work is substantially similar to that of the plaintiff’s work
The plaintiff tried to establish substantial similarity by claiming that an ordinary person would recognize ‘Stairway to Heaven’ as to have been taken away from Taurus.

He also claimed that there are similarities between ‘Taurus’ and the iconic notes, melody, chord progression, structure, tempo, instrumentation, and feel of ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Further the plaintiff said that the question of substantial similarity will be decided by the jury.
The defendants said that substantial similarity is established both an expert under the extrinsic test and by an ordinary person under the intrinsic test. According to the defendant, under the intrinsic test while musicologists( Skidmore’s expert) can testify as to the analytical dissection of the song but he or she has no objective, scientific or reliable basis to testify as to whether an ordinary person would find it substantially similar or not. Further, the similarity in concept and feel in an intrinsic test cannot be taken into account because it threatens the essence of copyright that is the protection for original

expressions.

Fig. 1

Fig.2
Under the extrinsic test the defendants rebutted the claim of substantial similarity by claiming that a tone progression is not a protectable expression.

The tone progression was not identical in this case (as is clear in fig.1 and fig. 2) and even if it was, it would not have been an infringement. The tone progression in the case of Taurus is only downscaling but in the case of Stairway to heaven it is both down-scaling and up-scaling which further establishes that substantial similarity cannot be established. Lastly, this tone progression is commonly used in the songs of blues tradition and hence would count as Scènes à

faire
Judgment of the jury: The verdict of the jury went in favor of Led Zeppelin, defendant. The jury dismissed the claims of the Michael Skidmore, plaintiff.
V. Conclusion
In the case of musical works copyright infringement can only be decided after separating out the protectable and un-protectable elements of a work. This activity requires both the knowledge of an expert and the judgment of an ordinary man. What on the face of it appears to be a copyright infringement might not actually be so as seen in the recent and the famous case of Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin. While dealing with the cases of copyright infringement in musical works, the most important thing that needs to be remembered is that this protection should extend only to those things which can pass the test of originality and creativity. This is because of a simple reason that the jurisprudence behind copyright extends to both promotion