"Stairway To Heaven" Plagarism court case

It's a small portion of the song overall.  It's accompanimental and not melodic.  There shouldn't be much of a case here IMO but look what happened with the Robin Thicke/Marvin Gaye suit--those people on the jury must have ignored every instruction pertaining to the particulars of copyright law.  I'd say there was less ground for a suit there than in the the Stairway case.  Anyway, it's a shame that a great talent like Randy California will be known better for this rather than for all the great guitar parts he laid down over the years.  The first four Spirit albums contain a lot of fine material.

And the new case over the Ed Sheeran song is another one without merit.  It's a pretty common chord progression, and more importantly,  it's only a chord progression.

I myself was very happy when Willie Dixon won his lawsuit against P & P for their blatant thievery, and was awarded a healthy financial settlement.

I am not an attorney, but I just can't see where this case has any merit.

To my way of thinking, if it did have merit, Randy California (the party who was harmed) would have filed decades ago (when he was alive).  His heirs probably got the idea and approached a law firm who would take the case on "contingency", and the law firm figured that, even if they lost, the free publicity would be worth it.

Everybody "steals", but P&P took it to the max.  Check out this video.

You are going to see more lawsuits like this as a result of the Marvin Gaye "Got To Give It Up" ruling.  It doesn't have to be the melody or the chords, but the "feel" can now be infringed.  Artist used to be driving the lawsuits, but attorneys are now marketing their skills and trying to solicit clients.