Led Zeppelin have won a long-running court case over claims it stole the opening guitar riff from its signature 1971 song Stairway to Heaven.
The band was handed victory after the US Supreme Court declined to take up the case, meaning that a March 2020 decision by a US appeals court in Led Zeppelin's favor will stand.
Lead singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had been accused in the six-year long case of ripping off the 1971 classic from the song Taurus, written by the late Randy Wolfe, a guitarist in the band Spirit. Taurus was written in 1968, three years before Stairway to Heaven.
Wolfe, who performed as Randy California, drowned in 1997, and the case was brought by a trustee for his estate.
The Los Angeles jury found the riff they were accused of stealing was not intrinsically similar to the opening chords of Stairway to Heaven.
Francis Malofiy, who represented Wolfe's estate, said on Monday that Led Zeppelin "won on a technicality" and said that the lawsuit had accomplished its goal.
Led Zeppelin has yet to comment on the conclusion of the case.
