Led Zeppelin may have a lucky escape…
According to a new report by The Hollywood Reporter, the ‘Stairway to Heaven’ case against Led Zeppelin may lead to a mistrial.
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page attended court in Los Angeles yesterday (June 14th). As the case went underway, Francis Malofiy – the attorney for the Michael Skidmore (trustee of Spirit member) showed a video that was not previously approved to be played during trial. Led Zeppelin’s attorney, Peter Anderson objected to the playing of the video, as it wasn’t on the joint list of exhibits submitted prior to the trial. But, Malofiy continued to play the video regardless.
As a result US District Judge R Gary Klausner has now responded by saying that this may lead to a mistrial.
Malofiy has been arguing that Led Zeppelin blatantly ripped off his client to create one of the biggest songs in modern music history – ‘Stairway to heaven’. However, with thin evidence Malofiy resorted to desperate measures by breaking the rules. But, this isn’t the first time. With such a high-profile case more information surfaced on Malofiy himself, particularly during his work chasing a copyright infringement lawsuit against Usher in 2014.
That case went down in flames, but not before Molify was sharply censured for ‘outrageous’ and ‘unprofessional’ behavior. “Throughout this copyright litigation, Plaintiff’s Counsel, Francis Malofiy, has behaved in a flagrantly unprofessional and offensive manner,” presiding Pennsylvania federal judge Paul Diamond wrote.
This ‘unprofessional’ behaviour has also been present in this ‘Stairway to heaven’ case with a complete disregard for the rules of the trial.
(Image by Beth Cortez-Neavel, Creative Commons, Public Domain)
yep america your copyright system is a gold standard of turd.
why not make it worse since it’s all you seem to be able to do?
From my point of view is almost clear that Francis Malofiy was obviously corrupted “from the other side” for commit such “stupid mistifying mistake ” ,which surely would not produce any serious conseguence from Malofiy himself, while in case,will invalidate all the serious Trial (very serious because after 40 years of royalties and fame, is A BIG BIG BIG matter of money and not only money but reliability, trusting,reputation….ecc….from my point of view,as a songwriter is MORE THEN EVIDENT that the song Stairway to heaven have the MAJOR “hook” (which in music refer to a major “sign of unicity” like e.g. the initial riff of “Smoke on the water” or the initial riff of “MOney for nothing”, e.g. in fashion we could recognize that a design of tailleur without “neck” was invented from Chanel …ecc) so finally we will see everything going to “Tarallucci e vino” as we say in Rome (i cant really translate…is like “lets go drinking and party instead to setup truth and justice…)…Led Zeppelin are pluri – over – awarded band especially (strange but truth) from USA establishment (Obama & co. they never have this kind of “approach” with UK band as Gilmour’s Pink Floyd or Deep Purple, ecc…) because IMHO they are “from the same “dark side” of the planet…(i am not talking about stupid satanic point of view….other “kind of power” . So the “morale” is Led Zep have to “stay up” and the story goes on. And fkk off you “Spirit” who you are?!!! WEll if you try also just to “think” a bit to the word “spirit” ….well maybe i am too stupid to talk so much….:-) have fun!
This case is a dog, a black dog, that is.