John Lennon footage copyright battle

Yoko Ono will be defending the ownership of footage shot of John Lennon in 1970 which reportedly shows him "smoking pot, writing songs, and discussing putting the hallucinogenic drug LSD in President Richard Nixon's tea."

Reuters reported that he footage was originally shot in early 1970 by Ono's first husband Tony Cox for a proposed documentary on Lennon called Remember. The footage, which was videotaped from February 8th to 11th, 1970, shows Lennon composing such solo classics as "Remember," and an early version of "Mind Games" called "Make Love, Not War."

Stills from the black and white film have made their way onto the Internet and show Lennon with close-cropped hair playing acoustic guitar and in another scene wrapped in a towel exiting the shower.

World Wide, a New England consortium of Beatles collectors, bought the raw video footage from Cox for $500,000 attempted to screen the documentary last year under the title "3 Days In The Life" at Berwick Academy in Maine, but was blocked in doing so by Ono's lawyers.

A preliminary hearing between Ono and World Wide over ownership of the tapes is set for April 30th in a Boston U.S. District Court.

Ono's attorneys claim that in 2000, Ono legally purchased the tapes from the company through a third party in Florida.
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