Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page faces new lawsuit over ‘Dazed and Confused’
Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page is facing a new lawsuit over the track ‘Dazed and Confused’ following its inclusion in the documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin.
Jake Holmes has long claimed that he wrote the song, which The Yardbirds first performed while Page was a member and later reworked into a Led Zeppelin hit. Holmes claims that Page first heard it when he opened for The Yardbirds at a club in Greenwich Village, New York, in 1967.
‘Dazed and Confused’ appeared on Holmes’ 1967 album, The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes, and The Yardbirds also began playing their own version live during this time. However, they never released an official recording, but the riff became the basis for a Led Zeppelin track, albeit with completely different lyrics.
For many decades, Holmes refused to make it a legal matter, but eventually filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Page in 2010. The matter was settled outside of court between the pair.
As part of the agreement, the credit on the official Led Zeppelin track was changed to include “inspired by Jake Holmes.” Since the settlement, live recordings of the Yardbirds’ version have been released, which Holmes claims he has not been credited for. This is the basis for his new legal filing.
On May 5th, he submitted the case to the Los Angeles federal court. The case alleges that Page is violating copyright law by not crediting or paying him for the archival releases or the Yardbirds version that appears in Becoming Led Zeppelin.
“The Yardbirds performance of ‘Dazed and Confused’ in the film is a performance of the Holmes Composition,” the lawsuit states.
It continues: “Defendants have thus committed multiple acts of willful infringement by continuing to use the Holmes Composition without authorization and in the face of both specific knowledge of Plaintiff’s rights and Plaintiff’s cease and desist demand.”
Page is yet to respond to the new lawsuit.
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