Frank Ocean threatened with legal action for sampling Eagles song

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Singer Frank Ocean took to his tumblr account recently to vent about being threatened with legal action by Rhino Records for his use of the Eagles’ “Hotel California” in his song, “American Wedding” from the mixtape nostalgia, ULTRA. The Huffington Post reports:

Though nostalgia, ULTRA was released over a year ago, the legal trouble appears to have only surfaced last week. A representative for Henley said that it was neither his client nor The Eagles who threatened legal action, but the label which owns the master track. Here’s a portion of Larry Solter’s response, as sent to the Los Angeles Times:

Frank Ocean did not merely “sample” a portion of the Eagles’ Hotel California; he took the whole master track, plus the song’s existing melody, and replaced the lyrics with his own. This is not creative, let alone “intimidating.” It’s illegal. For the record, Don Henley has not threatened or instituted any legal action against Frank Ocean, although the Eagles are now considering whether they should.

The Huffington Post reached out to Ocean’s publicist, who told us that he had no comment on the matter.

Ocean is signed to Def Jam, though he released nostalgia, ULTRA for free on his blog.

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