[ad_1]
- By Brandon Drenon
- bbc news
Image source, fake images
Handwritten pages of the earliest known versions of the legendary rock song Hotel California will take center stage in a criminal trial Wednesday.
Glenn Horowitz, Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski have been accused of conspiring to sell yellow-lined notebook pages, along with other Eagles lyrics, without the rights.
The notebook was allegedly stolen before it was purchased, prosecutors said.
All three men have pleaded not guilty.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office is expected to call former Eagles member Don Henley as its star witness.
When the manuscripts in question were put up for sale in 2012, Henley claimed they had been stolen, prompting Manhattan prosecutors to investigate.
The bench trial will include more than 80 pages of draft lyrics from the 1976 album Hotel California, including famous lines from the hit of the same name such as: “You can listen whenever you want, but you can never leave.”
Horowitz, Inciardi and Kosinki face charges of conspiracy to possess stolen property and other crimes, not of theft of the documents themselves.
Prosecutors will still have to prove the documents were stolen for the charges to stick. However, defense lawyers have claimed that the documents were not stolen.
The dispute dates back to the late 1970s, when writer Ed Sanders was working on a biography for the Eagles.
The band had reportedly allowed Sanders access to their files, which included notepads full of lyrics.
He sold them to Horowitz, a rare book dealer, for $50,000 in 2005, according to Vulture.
Horowitz then sold the lyrics to Inciardi and Kosinski, owner of a souvenir company.
Henley told a grand jury that he never gave Sanders the lyrics, according to court documents obtained by the Associated Press.
Sanders was not charged in the case.
Defense attorneys have suggested otherwise, casting doubt on Henley’s memory.
“We believe Mr. Henley voluntarily provided the lyrics to Mr. Sanders,” attorney Scott Edelman said in court last week.
Other handwritten pages in the lawsuit include lyrics from songs such as Life in the Fast Lane and New Kid in Town.
The Grammy-winning song Hotel California was streamed more than 220 million times in the United States alone last year and earned 136,000 radio plays, according to entertainment data company Luminate.
The album of the same name has sold 26 million copies nationwide.