New Lennon footage

[pledm]

Footage of John Lennon smoking pot, writing songs and discussing putting the hallucinogenic drug LSD in President Richard Nixon's tea is the focus of a court case starting in Boston next week over whether the video should be made public.
The case pits Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, against Lawrence, Massachusetts-based World Wide Video, which claims ownership of nine hours of raw footage of the former Beatle and Ono that was filmed just weeks before the "Fab Four" broke up in 1970.

World Wide, a New England consortium of Beatles collectors, wants to release the black-and-white footage as a two-hour film titled "3 days in the life" about Lennon during a pivotal and turbulent time for the most celebrated band of the 1960s.

Rolling Stone magazine dubs it "awesome John Lennon footage you might never see."

The company, which paid more than $1 million for the footage after legal costs and other expenses, nearly premiered it last year at the private Berwick Academy in Maine but abruptly scrapped the screening after the school received a stop order from Ono's lawyers, who assert copyright ownership of the videotapes.

World Wide has filed a suit in U.S. District Court in Boston against Ono for copyright infringement. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for April 30.

According to court documents, World Wide said it bought 24 original videotapes and their copyrights in 2000 from Anthony Cox, Ono's husband before her marriage to Lennon in 1969.

Cox shot the footage at Lennon's estate in England for a documentary he planned titled "Portrait."

The footage, recorded from February 8 to 11, 1970, shows Lennon composing two hits, "Remember" and "Mind Games," along with a candid discussion of his drug use and scenes that World Wide describes as "intimate and no-holds-barred."

World Wide asserts that shortly after purchasing the videotapes, along with 10 copies, they were stolen in 2000. The company filed a separate civil suit a year later against a New Hampshire man who agreed to return the copies and locate the originals, court documents show.

The original videotapes are now held by Ono, whose lawyers claim in a countersuit that she purchased them legally from World Wide through a Florida man, who has been named as a defendant in the Massachusetts company's suit.

"The decision that should be made in the case is who in fact does have the copyright," Joseph Doyle, World Wide's lawyer, said in a telephone interview. "We're saying that we legitimately own the copyright to this film."

Jonathan Albano, Ono's lawyer in Boston, declined to comment on the case.

[moondaddy]

Well whoever owns it hopefully will at least become available. Love to see that bit about acid in Nixon's tea.

[Summer]

I would LOVE to see the whole thing, but I would get a huge kick out of the part about Nixon's tea as well, Moondaddy. Thanks for posting this Pledm!

[pledm]

An update; looks like we won`t be seeing it.

Yoko Ono scores in feud over rare Lennon footage

BOSTON (Reuters) - John Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, made big strides on Wednesday in a legal feud over footage of the former Beatle smoking pot, writing songs and discussing putting the hallucinogenic drug LSD in President Richard Nixon's tea.

Ono is in a legal dispute to stop World Wide Video, a New England consortium of Beatles collectors, from releasing the black-and-white footage as a two-hour film titled "3 days in the life" about Lennon during a pivotal and turbulent time for the most celebrated band of the 1960s.

U.S. District Court Judge Rya Zobel in Boston ruled in favor of Ono in two counts in a case involving videotapes that Rolling Stone magazine has described as "awesome John Lennon footage you might never see."

The case is centered around who owns the nine hours of raw footage filmed weeks before the "Fab Four" broke up in 1970.

World Wide Video claims ownership of the videos and says it paid more than $1 million for them after legal costs and other expenses. Ono's lawyers say she purchased the tapes from World Wide through a Florida man.

After that, the case gets murky. World Wide asserts that the tapes were stolen and were sold to Ono illegally, and sued Ono for copyright infringement in a bid to publicly show them.

Zobel told the court that Ono did not do anything constituting infringement -- from performing copyrighted work publicly, or distributing or publicly displaying the videos.

"What the plaintiff suggests just doesn't fit," Zobel said. "It seems to me the defendant's motion is well taken because there was no infringement."

The judge also ruled World Wide waited too long to find out what happened to the stolen tapes. Ono registered the tapes in 2002, but World Wide claims they did not discover Ono had them until they received a letter from her lawyers last year.

"The statute of limitations bars the claim as well," Zobel said. "The circumstances here really favor the defendant, not the claimant."

World Wide's lawyer, Joseph Doyle, said the case was still pending and that the question of who ultimately owned the videotapes had not been resolved. The judge has yet to rule on several other aspects of the case, he added.

World Wide was set to premier the documentary last year at the private Berwick Academy in Maine but abruptly scrapped the screening after the school received a stop order from Ono's lawyers.

It said it bought 24 original videotapes and their copyrights in 2000 from Anthony Cox, Ono's husband before her marriage to Lennon in 1969. Cox shot the footage at Lennon's estate in England for a documentary he planned titled "Portrait."

The footage, recorded from February 8 to 11, 1970, shows Lennon composing two hits, "Remember" and "Mind Games," along with a candid discussion of his drug use and scenes that World Wide describes as "intimate and no-holds-barred."

World Wide says the footage also shows Lennon sitting in front of a teapot saying, "We should put LSD in a teapot for Richard Nixon," among other scenes of the Beatle smoking marijuana and going through a typical day.

Really its to bad we won`t see this.