LOS ANGELES – Led Zeppelin prevailed on Thursday in a copyright lawsuit brought against surviving members of the British rock band, as jurors rejected a claim that the opening guitar passage from its classic hit “Stairway to Heaven” was lifted from the lesser-known US band Spirit.

The jury’s verdict, which found substantial differences between “Stairway to Heaven” and Spirit’s instrumental track “Taurus,” followed a weeklong federal court trial in Los Angeles that had called into question the originality of the 1971 song by Led Zeppelin, one of the top-selling rock acts of all time.

Legal experts said the unanimous verdict, reached on the jury’s second day of deliberations, could narrow the grounds on which future copyright infringement challenges are brought in the music industry.

The jury found Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page had access to “Taurus,” a song written in 1967, but that the riff they were accused of stealing was not intrinsically similar to the opening chords of “Stairway.”

Page, 72, and Plant, 67, who testified and were present throughout the closely watched trial, showed little immediate reaction to the verdict in court.

“We are grateful for the jury’s conscientious service and pleased that it has ruled in our favour, putting to rest questions about the origins of ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and confirming what we have known for 45 years,” Page and Plant said in a joint statement.

Led Zeppelin bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones also took the stand during the trial. Originally sued along with Page and Plant, he was later dismissed as a defendant. The band’s drummer, John Bonham, died in 1980, the year the group disbanded.

The conclusion of the “Stairway” case comes just over a year after a federal jury in Los Angeles found singers Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams had plagiarised Motown great Marvin Gaye in creating their hit single “Blurred Lines.”

A jury awarded Gaye’s family US$7.4 million (S$9.9 million), but a judge later reduced the amount to US$5.3 million. That verdict is under appeal.

While the “Blurred Lines” case might have bolstered hopes of other artists suing for copyright infringement, Led Zeppelin’s victory may cause musicians and attorneys to think twice before heading to court, said music industry attorney William Hochberg.

“This decision created a sharper, clearer line in terms of what is protectable and what is not in music,” Hochberg said.

Page, who co-wrote “Stairway to Heaven” with Plant and composed the guitar riff in question, testified he had not heard “Taurus” until recent years.

He acknowledged owning a copy of Spirit’s self-titled album including “Taurus” but did not know how he had acquired it.

Michael Skidmore, trustee for the estate of the late Randy Wolfe, the Spirit guitarist and “Taurus” songwriter who was known as Randy California, sued in 2014 over the “Taurus” chord progression.

Led Zeppelin was the opening act for the now-defunct US band on tour in the United States in 1968, the lawsuit said.

Skidmore’s attorney, Francis Malofiy, said after the ruling that his side was hamstrung by US District Judge R. Gary Klausner’s order preventing jurors from listening to Spirit’s recording of “Taurus.”

Instead, jurors could only compare simple renditions of the sheet music for the two songs.

“We’re taking it one step at a time … but there’s obviously issues that can be appealed,” Malofiy said.

MADRID – Bollywood superstar Salman Khan, who sparked uproar in India by saying his heavy training schedule for an upcoming film left him feeling “like a raped woman”, said Thursday he needs to talk less to stay out of trouble.

Khan, who has played a bad boy with a heart of gold in dozens of Indian blockbusters, made the controversial comments in an interview to promote his latest Bollywood movie “Sultan”, which tells the story of an ageing wrestler trying to make a comeback.

“When I used to walk out of the ring, after the shoot, I used to feel like a raped woman. I couldn’t walk straight,” 50-year-old said in an interview with Indian news site Spotboye.com published on Monday.

India’s National Commission for Women demanded a public apology, calling the comments “reprehensible”, following an outcry on social media where the hashtag #InsensitiveSalman has been trending.

In the wake of the row all eyes were on Khan as he took the stage Thursday night in Madrid alongside a handful of other top Bollywood stars to promote the International Indian Film Academy awards which will be held over the weekend in the Spanish capital.

“I know it has been a long evening, I will make it short, quick,” he said, prompting a woman in the audience to yell out: “No! Long!”.

Khan then said: “I have to. Knowing me the shorter I keep it the better it is.” The audience, made up largely of Indian journalists and entertainment industry workers, broke out into cheers and applause.

Khan is nominated for best actor in the International Indian Film Academy awards for his role in “Bajrangi Bhaijaan”, the biggest-grossing Bollywood film of 2015.

The movie, about a man who embarks on a journey to reunite a mute six-year-old Pakistani girl stuck in India with her parents in Pakistan, is expected to be one of the big winners at th 17th edition of the awards, which are held in a different city outside of India every year.

Last year Khan was cleared of killing a homeless man in a hit-and-run crash and he is battling allegations he used unlicensed arms to shoot antelopes in western India.

The biggest threat to the Iron Throne could be Brexit.

HBO’s hit fantasy epic “Game of Thrones” could face costly obstacles while filming its final two seasons if the UK leaves the European Union, according to Foreign Policy, a publication focused on covering global affairs.

“Game of Thrones” is funded, in part, by the European Regional Development Fund, a group that seeks to increase economic growth in the European Union.

If the UK departs the European Union, HBO could lose one of its primary filming locations – Northern Ireland. Filming could become too costly for the company and would require HBO to either relocate or find alternative funding.

“It might be up in the air for US studios who want to film in the UK,” Peter Chase, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ Brussels office, told Foreign Policy. “There are EU programs to help fund all of this. If the UK is no longer part of the EU, that has the potential to go away.”

9 beautiful Game of Thrones landscapes you need to visit

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Skyscanner, Andalucia.org

“Game of Thrones” is not the only production that could be affected by Brexit. British film and television projects were granted a total of US$32 million (S$43 million) in the last seven years from organisations like Creative Europe, which, like the European Regional Development Fund, are designed to increase economic growth and jobs in the European Union.

More than 280 actors, authors and leaders of the UK’s creative industries published a letter in The Telegraph in May backing the campaign to remain a part of the European Union.

“Leaving Europe would be a leap into the unknown for millions of people across the UK who work in the creative industries, and for the millions more at home and abroad who benefit from the growth and vibrancy of Britain’s cultural sector,” according to the letter.

Notable signatories included Keira Knightley, Sir Patrick Stewart, Sir John Hurt, Benedict Cumberbatch and Helena Bonham Carter.

WASHINGTON – Multifaceted actor Al Pacino, acclaimed for his movie roles as a mob boss, a druglord and even Satan, is among the performers to receive this year’s Kennedy Center Honors, one of America’s top awards in the arts.

Pacino joins a wide-ranging group of musicians – rock band the Eagles, rhythm-and-blues legend Mavis Staples, singer-songwriter James Taylor and pianist Martha Argerich – on the roster of Kennedy Center award winners announced Thursday.

President Barack Obama will receive the honorees at the White House for the 39th annual gala on December 4, and footage of the star-studded event will air in a primetime special on December 29.

“These honorees represent what is possible when creativity is not just cultivated, but unleashed,” Kennedy Center Chairman David Rubenstein said in a statement.

Pacino’s nomination comes as little surprise: The star of “The Godfather” trilogy has long been considered one of America’s finest actors.

“Al Pacino has embodied some of the most powerful characters of our time on both the stage and the silver screen,” said Rubenstein.

The Eagles might also seem overdue, if only because the band was to have received the award last year but had to withdraw because of frontman Glenn Frey’s failing health.

Frey had planned to attend this year’s celebration but died in January.

“The Eagles’ ambitiously themed albums epically merged the American West and rock n’ roll, paving the way for unconventional music makers and artists to come,” said Rubenstein.

Three more solo musicians filled out the group, including gospel and blues singer Staples, whose music “served as a musical backdrop” to the Civil Rights movement, Rubenstein noted.

The chairman called Taylor “one of the defining musical figures of our time,” dubbing his music “the soundtrack of our country.” Born in Buenos Aires, Argerich made her US debut in 1965 and went on to become “one of the greatest pianists of the 20th and 21st centuries,” said Rubenstein.