The San Francisco Court of Appeal ruled this by closing a legal battle that lasted for years and confirming that the legendary rock group did not copy the song "Taurus" by Spirit, a Californian group active in the 1960s, to compose their worldwide success, first published in 1971.
The court, made up of eleven judges, confirmed what was decided in Los Angeles in 2016.
At the time, in fact, the judges found that Robert Plant, singer of Led Zeppelin, and guitarist Jimmy Page have had access to the song of Spirit, but the latters, who claimed between 3 and 13 million dollars of copyright, have not been able to demonstrate that elements of the song "Taurus" were "intrinsically similar" to the incipit of "Stairway to Heaven".
In 2016, a jury in the “Stairway” case found that Jimmy Page and Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, the song’s two credited writers, did not infringe on the copyright of “Taurus" but in 2018, an appeals court ordered a new trial, saying the jury had not received proper instructions.
Led Zeppelin members then requested and obtained a review from the San Francisco Court of Appeals. Finally the decision arrived, and the court upheld the jury’s verdict that the band did not infringe on the copyright of the Spirit's song, on the basis of a copyright law dating back to 1909.