The trial to determine if Led Zeppelin ripped off the Spirit song “Taurus” when writing “Stairway to Heaven” is scheduled to get under way tomorrow (Tuesday) at 9 a.m. PT in Los Angeles, but there could be a delay.
The attorney for the estate of the late Spirit guitarist Randy California says the musicologist Zep’s lawyers hired, Lawrence Ferrara, was hired to evaluate these songs before.
Attorney Francis Malofiy says, “Ferrara is the go-to expert for major industry players. He gives them the opinions they want. He has done so literally hundreds of times… Defense counsel wanted the expert they knew would give them the opinion they wanted, and went to great lengths to hide disqualifying information about him.”
Malofiy has asked the court not to allow Ferrara to testify and to impose monetary sanctions on Zeppelin’s attorneys for using a conflicted expert and trying to hide it. (Hollywood Reporter)