Entertainment
Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page Settles Lawsuit Over Decades-Old ‘Dazed and Confused’ Credits Dispute
Led Zeppelin‘s Jimmy Page and a songwriter have reached a settlement to resolve the latest lawsuit over the disputed credits to the band’s iconic song “Dazed and Confused,” according to new court filings.
The agreement, filed in court Friday (Aug. 1), will quickly end a copyright case filed this spring by Jake Holmes, a songwriter who has claimed for years that he actually wrote “Dazed and Confused” and that Page simply performed it without credit or payment.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed in public filings, other than to say that it “resolves the entire case” and will be formalized in the weeks ahead. Notice of the settlement was filed by attorneys for Holmes and was not signed by lawyers for Page or other defendants.
Reps for Page did not return a request for comment. An attorney for Holmes declined to comment.
Holmes wrote and recorded “Dazed and Confused” in 1967; Page later reworked it into a song for his band The Yardbirds, then into the famed 1969 Zeppelin track. Decades later, in 2010, Holmes filed a copyright lawsuit against Page. That case quickly settled, and the credits for Zeppelin’s track now say it was “written Jimmy Page, inspired by Jake Holmes.”
But in May, Holmes sued Page again, accusing the legendary rocker of flouting that earlier agreement and violating his rights. The case centered on newly released recordings of Yardbirds performances and the recent documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin.
“By falsely claiming that the Holmes composition is the Page composition, … Page [and others] have willfully infringed the Holmes composition,” Holmes’ lawyers write. “Defendants…have ignored plaintiff’s cease and desist demand and continue to infringe.”
The case against Page was still in the earliest stages, and he and the various other defendants (which also included music publisher Warner Chappell and film studio Sony Pictures) had not yet formally responded to the accusations with court filings of their own.
