Jake Holmes finally does it - lawsuit over "Dazed & Confused"

Saw this on a Led Zeppelin mailing list this morning. After 41 years, Jake Holmes has finally filed a copyright infringement lawsuit over the writing credits for "Dazed And Confused". Here are the raw documents:

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its about time. jimmy page copied so much music on LZ1 its absurd.

 

Well they settle with Mr. Dixon. I'm sure that Mr. Page and Atlantics legal staff has been waiting for this.

Cheers, Michael

 

Should have been done decades ago. In fact, that fact is probably the best defense Page has going for him.

 

Good for Holmes. Though he'll have an uphill struggle now that he's waited so long. David P. Jackson Jr. lost his "Joy to the World" lawsuit mainly because of a similar delay. Holmes is in a slightly better position than Jackson, since he did register a copyright for "Dazed and Confused" when he first came up with it.

 

Seconded. Mr. Page has stolen millions of dollars by crediting the song to himself. The millions of copies sold for the band's debut, the 1990 Remasters set and the band's live albums, Jake Holmes has been denied a lot of money.

 

Indeed. What excuse is he going to furnish the court for the delay? He can hardly argue he was unaware of the Led Zep song.

 

And that just begs the question: why would Holmes deliberately allow himself to be denied all that money over the past 40 years? He'll be lucky to recoup a fraction of what he could have (and should have) received.

 

The timeline wasn't an obstacle in the recent Men At Work vs Kookaburra plagiarism trial , which they lost . But that was in an Aussie court < [there should be a 'dazed' smilie to go with this !]

 

Surely it would be far easier and sensible (and cheaper) to agree to an "out of court" settlement?

 

Holmes claims that he approached the band in the 1980s and requested compensation, but was rebuffed. He never followed up on that until yesterday.

There are also rumors that Holmes did, in fact, agree to a secret out of court settlement in 1969 -- before he realized how huge Led Zeppelin was going to become. It will be interesting to see if Jimmy offers any proof of such a settlement.

Then again, Jimmy may not need to if the statute of limitations has expired.

 

Guilty as charged !

 

Well, Willie Dixon waited 15 years to launch an infringement suit over "Whole Lotta Love", and got a good out of court settlement for it. Maybe Holmes is expecting about the same, as according to this link, the statute of limitations is only three years after the date of infringement.

At any rate, agreed it's about bloody time Holmes did something. Letting such a blatant case of songtheft stand for so long was nuts.

EDIT: OK, I see the suit alleges "ongoing infringement" owing to the licensing and collection of royalties on the song within the past three years, not least on the Mothership set. I would've thought he'd demand a composer's credit here, but maybe this isn't the place for that.

 

He's NO match for the mighty Zepp!

 

I predict an out of court settlement at best.

 

Is it possible that he didn't pursue legal action earlier because he didn't have the financial resources to do so.

 

I dunno; he became a pretty successful commercial music writer (he did the jingles foe "Army: Be all that you can be" and "Gilette: the best a man can get") so I assume he was doing well enough for himself to finance a suit.

 

Not what I expected and maybe his career needs another boost?



http://www.furious.com/perfect/jakeholmes.html

 

I think a lot of lawyers would have worked for free on this case knowing he would probably win.. Not sure why he waited so long....

 

One would hope that Page & Co. have enough class to settle fairly out of court... it should have happened a long time ago. Jimmy should also issue a personal apology to Jake Holmes and a public apology to the music fans he's hoodwinked for 40-odd years.

Is that asking too much? It's time Jimmy shed some of the bad karma he's been shouldering.

 

Led Zep copied other's music?

I'm shocked.

 

Maybe he'd instantly regain his old chops!

 

Why should he apologize to the fans? Do you think there are fans out there who bought albums (or went to concerts) solely because they thought Jimmy wrote "Dazed And Confused"?

 

It looks like suit has life due to the new entities created by Atlantic due to remastering, hence he gets around not filing after Anderson Theater album or first Zep album.

 

Darryl