Led Zeppelin won. The Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, affirmed the district court’s judgment in their favor. The descending chromatic figure at the opening of “Stairway to Heaven” does not infringe the copyright in “Taurus” by Spirit. The claim failed.

The case is the most doctrinally significant Ninth Circuit music copyright decision in at least two decades. It did not just decide who won. It eliminated a rule that had operated in the Ninth Circuit for decades, reaffirmed the deposit copy standard for pre-1978 compositions, and articulated the correct method for analyzing similarity claims based on commonplace musical elements. Every practitioner in this space needs to know it. Every forensic musicologist retained in a Ninth Circuit case needs to be fluent in it.

The musical claim

Randy California was the guitarist for Spirit. He wrote “Taurus” in 1967; the song was registered with the Copyright Office that year. “Stairway to Heaven” was released in 1971. The opening of Stairway features a descending chromatic line in A minor, arpeggiated across the strings of an acoustic guitar. The opening of Taurus contains a similar device. The plaintiff argued that Led Zeppelin copied it.

The similarity is audible. Anyone who has heard both recordings recognizes the resemblance in the guitar figure. The forensic question, however, is not whether both songs use a similar device. The question is whether the specific expression in the “Taurus” copyright deposit is what Led Zeppelin copied, and whether that expression is even protectable.

Both questions get the same answer: no.

The deposit copy and what it contains

Because “Taurus” was registered before 1978, the deposit copy rule applies. The comparison must be made against what was actually deposited with the Copyright Office, not against what you hear on the Spirit recording. The deposit of “Taurus” is a lead sheet. It notates certain elements of the composition. What the en banc court found, and what a careful analysis of the deposit confirms, is that the deposit does not contain the specific arpeggiation pattern that creates the aural resemblance between the two songs.

That matters enormously. The sound of a descending arpeggiated chromatic line on acoustic guitar is partly a function of how the player fingers the strings, the specific voicing chosen, the rhythm of the picking. Much of what makes the two recordings sound similar is performance technique and production, not notation. The deposit did not protect those elements. A comparison confined to the deposit is a comparison of thinner material than most casual listeners assume.

The forensic discipline required here is to analyze the deposit as the actual object of comparison and resist the pull of the recordings. That is harder than it sounds. When you spend time with both recordings, the resemblance is vivid. When you discipline your analysis to the deposit, the claim becomes much weaker.

Scènes à faire and the building blocks of music

The en banc court also applied the scènes à faire doctrine to the musical elements at issue. A descending chromatic scale in A minor is not the original invention of Randy California or anyone else. It is a fundamental harmonic device, available in Western music theory for centuries, used in countless compositions before 1967. Arpeggiation — breaking a chord into sequential notes rather than striking them simultaneously — is a basic guitar technique, not a creative choice unique to any composer.

These elements are the alphabet of tonal music. Allowing one composer to own them would give a monopoly over the building blocks of an entire harmonic vocabulary. The court correctly refused. The scènes à faire doctrine removes from the field of protectable expression those elements that are standard, stock, or common to a genre. The descending A minor chromatic arpeggio qualifies.

The court’s holding on this point is direct: plaintiff must show that the specific selection and arrangement of elements was copied, not merely that shared elements appear in both works. The fact that two songs both use a descending chromatic line, standing alone, proves nothing. What matters is whether the specific combination and arrangement of musical choices in the deposit — the unique expressive synthesis — appears in the defendant’s work. The plaintiff in Skidmore could not make that showing.

The elimination of the inverse-ratio rule

This is the holding with the longest reach. The inverse-ratio rule held that when a defendant had significant access to the plaintiff’s work, the threshold of similarity required to prove infringement was lowered. Access and similarity traded off against each other. High access meant you needed to show less similarity.

The en banc court eliminated that rule entirely. The decision explains the problem directly: access and similarity are separate inquiries. Copyright protection does not depend on how obscure a work is. A popular song is not more vulnerable to infringement claims just because defendants had every opportunity to hear it. The inverse-ratio rule had no support in the Copyright Act and had produced perverse results. It is gone.

The practical effect is immediate. After Skidmore, a defendant in the Ninth Circuit cannot have the similarity bar lowered because they happened to be a successful artist who likely heard the plaintiff’s work. The plaintiff must prove substantial similarity under a consistent standard regardless of how famous either party is or how widely the original work circulated.

This matters for understanding Williams v. Gaye. The inverse-ratio rule was applied at trial in that case. Marvin Gaye’s work was ubiquitous. Access was not contested. So the similarity threshold was lowered before the jury ever began comparing the works. That thumb on the scale is no longer available. Cases filed after Skidmore start from a different baseline.

Why this case is the doctrinal anchor

Skidmore did not just hand Led Zeppelin a victory. It reshaped the field. The earlier panel opinion at 905 F.3d 1116 had reversed the district court and sent the case back for retrial, creating serious uncertainty about whether the tightened post-Williams v. Gaye standard would hold. The en banc court’s intervention settled the question: the Ninth Circuit will require plaintiffs to do the hard work of identifying specifically protectable expression and showing it was copied. Style, feel, and common building blocks are not enough.

For anyone retaining a forensic musicologist in the Ninth Circuit, Skidmore defines the assignment. The analysis starts with the deposit. It filters out common elements. It asks whether the specific selection and arrangement in the deposit appears in the defendant’s work. That is the correct method. It is also, frankly, a more demanding method than many similarity analyses that appear in court.

The musical analysis is mine. Legal advice is your attorney’s.