Don Henley’s Beef With Frank Ocean’s Use of The Eagles’ “Hotel California”: It’s Copyright Infringement City [Audio]

We're huge fans of The Eagles! To hear that one of their songs is being used without permission may not sound like a huge deal.. but when you hear what Frank Ocean has done.. It gets us fired up!

The Eagles' Hotel California is one of the most popular songs of the 1970's. It's one of the most popular songs of the 1990's as well, as they released a live version of the song for their 'Hell Freezes Over' concert album. The song is heard on radios across the nation on daily basis- which kind of makes sense that it would want to be used by another artist- and kind of crazy-because it's not like some kind of 'deep cut' that nobody hears or would recognize.

Frank Ocean has put out a song- "American Wedding". That song, without question, uses the exact melody of "Hotel California".

Henley's comments from The Daily Telegraph:

"Mr Ocean doesn't seem to understand US copyright law. Anyone who knows anything should know you cannot take a master track of a recording and write another song over the top of it. You just can't do that. You can call it a tribute or whatever you want to call it, but it's against the law. That's a problem with some of the younger generation, they don't understand the concept of intellectual property and copyright."

Frank Ocean doesn't seem to care- From his Tumblr accout:

[Henley was] "apparently intimidated by my rendition of Hotel California" and "threatened to sue if I perform it again."

Listen for yourself:

We side with The Eagles on this one: Sampling a song is one thing- but this is completely different!