'Stairway to Heaven' and five other tracks that sparked copyright rows

'Blurred Lines' was ruled to have copied Marvin Gaye's hit 'Got to Give It Up'.

Led Zeppelin are preparing to go to trial over whether they stole the opening chords for their 1971 hit Stairway to Heaven.

Here are five other well-known songs whose performers were also sued for copyright infringement.

Blurred Lines - Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke

Blurred Lines made Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke millions when it became the biggest hit of 2013 - and was even nominated for a Grammy.

But two years later the pair were forced to pay out a whopping $7.4m (£5.2m) to Marvin Gaye's family who claimed they copied his 1977 hit Got to Give It Up.

A jury ruled in favour of Gaye's children, who are copyright owners of all his music, and they were awarded the cash.

Stay With Me - Sam Smith

It was Sam Smith's biggest hit from this debut album, but Stay With Me ended up landing him in hot water.

The British singer agreed to give US rocker Tom Petty a co-writing credit after it bore striking similarities to his 1989 song I Won't Back Down.

In a statement afterwards, Petty said he "never had any hard feelings towards Sam", adding: "These things can happen."

Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice

Vanilla Ice, real name Robert Van Winkle, wrote the lyrics to Ice Ice baby in 1983 when he was just 16.

But when he released the song in 1990, a disgruntled Queen and David Bowie claimed he had sampled the melody from their 1981 hit Under Pressure.

Van Winkle later gave Freddie Mercury and Bowie writers' credits for the song, which became known as one of the most popular novelty singles.

Viva La Vida - Coldplay

British band Coldplay reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement in 2008 with guitarist Joe Satriani after he alleged that they copied parts of one his songs for their hit Viva La Vida.

Mr Satriani sued the band after claiming that they used "substantial, original portions" of his 2004 song If I Could Fly.

As part of the settlement Mr Satriani dropped his lawsuit and Coldplay did not have to admit wrongdoing.

Big Pimpin' - Jay Z

Last year rapper Jay-Z and his producer Timbaland won a long-running copyright case related to the 1999 hit Big Pimpin.

The case was brought by the nephew of Egyptian composer Baligh Hamdi who said the song used substantial portions of his uncle's song Khosara Khosara.

However a US judge ruled that Osama Fahmy lacked the right to pursue a copyright infringement claim and the case was dismissed.