Michael Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• noting “dismissal at the 18 pleading stage is by no means unprecedented” in copyright infringement cases
• finding the district court did not abuse its “broad discretion” by permitting expert 18 to testify notwithstanding his alleged conflict of interest
• noting 15 the access and substantial similarity prongs at this step are also referred to as “copying” 16 and “unlawful appropriation,” respectively
• noting “dismissal at the 18 pleading stage is by no means unprecedented” in copyright infringement cases
• substantial similarity may be decided as a matter of law by applying the extrinsic test
• “To conclude otherwise would allow a 17 court to base a grant of summary judgment on a purely subjective determination of 18 similarity.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).

Cited by

21 cases in this archive cite this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

• Enchant Christmas Light Maze v. Glowco LLC
  Sixth Circuit· 2020-05-14· cited 53×
• Donna Corbello v. Frankie Valli
  Ninth Circuit· 2020-09-08· cited 22×
• Kia Davidson v. O'Reilly Auto Enterprises, LLC
  Ninth Circuit· 2020-08-03· cited 21×
• Marcus Gray v. Katheryn Hudson
  Ninth Circuit· 2022-03-10· cited 21×
• Oracle America, Inc. v. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co.
  Ninth Circuit· 2020-08-20· cited 19×
• Unicolors, Inc. v. H&M Hennes & Mauritz, Lp
  Ninth Circuit· 2020-05-29· cited 17×
• Enterprise Management Limited, Inc. v. Construx Software Builders, Inc.
  Ninth Circuit· 2023-07-17· cited 12×
• Kyle Hanagami v. Epic Games, Inc.
  Ninth Circuit· 2023-11-01· cited 11×
• Rodney Woodland v. Montero Hill
  Ninth Circuit· 2025-05-16· cited 7×
• Billfloat Inc. v. Collins Cash Inc.
  Ninth Circuit· 2024-07-01· cited 5×
• Structured Asset Sales, LLC v. Sheeran
  Second Circuit· 2024-11-01· cited 3×
• Whyte Monkee Productions v. Netflix
  Tenth Circuit· 2024-03-27· cited 1×
• Norman v. Ross
  California Court of Appeal· 2024-04-23
• Tangle, Inc. v. Aritzia, Inc.
  Ninth Circuit· 2025-01-14
• The Ohio House, LLC v. City of Costa Mesa
  Ninth Circuit· 2025-04-24
• Epic Games, Inc. v. Google LLC
  Ninth Circuit· 2025-07-31
• Ambrosetti v. Oregon Catholic Press
  Ninth Circuit· 2025-08-27
• Biani v. Showtime Networks, Inc.
  Ninth Circuit· 2025-09-08
• Yonay v. Paramount Pictures Corporation
  Ninth Circuit· 2026-01-02
• Sedlik v. Von Drachenberg
  Ninth Circuit· 2026-01-02

Cites

74 cases in this archive are cited by this case; the 20 most cited are listed.

• United States v. Olano
  Supreme Court· 1993-04-26· cited 16,571×
• Scott v. Harris
  Supreme Court· 2007-04-30· cited 13,305×
• Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co.
  Supreme Court· 1991-03-27· cited 2,678×
• Jones v. Williams
  Ninth Circuit· 2002-07-24· cited 1,162×
• Reed Elsevier, Inc. v. Muchnick
  Supreme Court· 2010-03-02· cited 744×
• Gilbrook v. City of Westminster
  Ninth Circuit· 1999-05-21· cited 435×
• Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc.
  Supreme Court· 2014-05-19· cited 433×
• Data General Corp. v. Grumman Systems Support Corp.
  First Circuit· 1994-09-15· cited 321×
• Goldstein v. California
  Supreme Court· 1973-06-18· cited 302×
• Bleistein v. Donaldson Lithographing Co.
  Supreme Court· 1903-02-02· cited 269×
• Troy Swinton v. Potomac Corporation, Dba Crescent Cardboard Company, Dba crescent/u.s. Mat
  Ninth Circuit· 2001-10-24· cited 248×
• Smith v. Jackson
  Ninth Circuit· 1996-06-05· cited 245×
• Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  Supreme Court· 2016-06-16· cited 213×
• Alveda King Beal v. Paramount Pictures Corporation
  Eleventh Circuit· 1994-05-11· cited 196×
• Three Boys Music Corp. v. Bolton
  Ninth Circuit· 2000-05-09· cited 194×
• Clem v. Lomeli
  Ninth Circuit· 2009-06-02· cited 187×
• Dewayne Bearchild v. Kristy Cobban
  Ninth Circuit· 2020-01-16· cited 185×
• Apple Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.
  Ninth Circuit· 1994-09-19· cited 177×
• Lou Shaw Eastborne Productions, Inc. v. Richard Lindheim Michael Sloan Universal City Studios, Inc. Columbia Broadcasting Systems McA Television, Ltd.
  Ninth Circuit· 1990-11-23· cited 164×
• Jada Toys, Inc. v. Mattel, Inc.
  Ninth Circuit· 2008-02-21· cited 162×

Other cases named Michael Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin

3 other CourtListener records share this case name.

• Michael Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin
  Ninth Circuit· 2018-09-28· cited 11×
• Michael Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin
  Ninth Circuit· 2019-06-10
• Michael Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin
  Ninth Circuit· 2020-03-09