As you may recall, the band Spirit filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Led Zeppelin claiming their big hit "Stairway to Heaven," arguably the most famous classic rock song of all time, was a rip off of Spirit's track "Taurus."
The suit could end up costing Zep millions of dollars, but the lawyers for Spirit are willing to settle for $1, with a tiny little catch. Bloomberg reports:
“Lawyers suing members of rock supergroup Led Zeppelin say their client is willing to settle a lawsuit over the band’s most famous song–a claim potentially worth millions of dollars–for just $1.
“The catch is that band members Robert Plant and Jimmy Page would have to give dead rocker Randy California a writing credit on the iconic 1971 rock balladStairway to Heaven. And that’s probably worth a lot more than a buck. Such an agreement by Page and Plant, the band’s guitarist and singer, respectively, would head off a much anticipated copyright infringement trial scheduled for May 10 in Los Angeles federal court.”
Of course, the tiny little catch would result in millions of dollars of future royalties for Randy California's estate, and in a way, Led Zep would admit some fault if they take the settlement.
Something tells me the band has no interest in settling or giving up any sort of writing credits and they have plenty of cash to pay lawyers to fight this. It should be interesting to see how this plays out further.
