Don Henley, co-founder of the successful rock band Eagles, never thought he would one day have to fight in court for the rights to the lyrics to his hit song “Hotel California.” According to Henley, they should never have been put up for auction, reports the British daily The Independent.
“I always knew that these texts were my property. “I never gave them away or gave them to anyone to keep or sell,” the musician said during three days of testimony in the trial of three collectibles experts accused of selling about 100 handwritten pages of lyrics.
The defendants are accused of, among other things, criminal possession of stolen property
Bookseller Glenn Horowitz and connoisseurs of rock memorabilia Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski are accused. Prosecutors say the three allegedly spread fictitious stories about the ownership history of the documents to sell them and fend off Henley's demands for their return.
As The Independent reports, the defendants have pleaded not guilty. They are charged with, among other things, conspiracy to commit criminal possession of stolen property.
The defense claims the defendants legally owned the documents and were allowed to sell them because they bought them from a writer who worked on a never-published biography of the Eagles decades ago.
The trial centers on how the papers traveled from Henley's barn in Southern California to the named biographer in New York's Hudson Valley and then to the defendants in New York. According to the British newspaper, Henley claims he invited writer Ed Sanders to look at the pages for his research, but he had to return them.
The process also includes other documents
According to the Independent's report, the fate of another set of documents, a decades-old manuscript of Sanders' biography, was also discussed during the trial. He allegedly sold the papers to Horowitz. Inciardi and Kosinski then bought them from a bookseller and began auctioning some of the pages in 2012.
As the Independent further reports, the once-published biography was approved in 1979 and is said to cover the band's break-up the following year.
The legal battle parallels Henley's return to the stage
However, the publication of the book never took place. Eagles manager Irving Azoff admitted last week that publishers didn't receive offers, that the book was never approved by the band, and that he believed Frey ultimately ended the project.
The trial is expected to continue for a few more weeks while Henley prepares to return to the stage. The Eagles' next concert is in Hollywood, Florida in a few days.
This article “Don Henley fights for ownership of lyrics” was originally from BUNTE.de.