Jimmy Page is being sued by the American artist who wrote the track Dazed and Confused.
Jake Holmes' original version appeared on his 1967 debut album The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes. Holmes supported The Yardbirds in the US in the 1960s and the band started performing their own version of Holmes' track.
When Page took the track to Led Zeppelin, the version now recognised as the classic appeared on their 1969 debut album, credited to Page as the sole songwriter.
Holmes claimed to have written to Page to request credit for the track, but says he was ignored. He eventually sued Page for copyright infringement in 2010, resulting in reissues of the debut album crediting Dazed and Confused to "Page – inspired by Jake Holmes".
Now Holmes, 85, is suing again. This time, Page's co-defendants include Sony Pictures, who Holmes says incorrectly credited the track in this year's Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary.
In the complaint filed in California this week, Holmes says two early live recordings of Dazed and Confused were featured in the documentary without his permission and without payment.
The filing claims that the co-defendants "willfully infringed the Holmes composition by falsely claiming that the Holmes composition is the Page composition, by purporting to license use in the film of the Holmes composition as if it was the Page composition, and by collecting license fees for use of the Holmes composition in the film."
It also claims Page has released a number of other live recordings of the track without the correct credit and without payment.
If his lawsuit is successful, Holmes will be paid $150,000 for each copyright infringement.
In 2013, Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty told Something Else: "Dazed and Confused is a song with a great rock ‘n’ roll story. We played with Jake Holmes in New York and were looking for songs.
"As usual, I wandered backstage to watch the support act and heard some quite pleasant folky songs. Then they played this song in a minor key with a very haunting guitar run down, and I immediately thought it would suit us.
"I went down to the record store in Greenwich Village, bought Jake’s album, and we worked out our version – later to be recorded by Zeppelin, becoming one of the classics of all time."
