Frank Ocean Fan Given Cease-And-Desist Over Coachella Performance Film

The Anschutz Entertainment Group, also known as AEG Worldwide, has officially issued a cease-and-desist to a Los Angeles-based filmmaker after he created and shared a video of Frank Ocean’s entire Coachella headlining set.

According to a comprehensive report from Variety, a fan of Frank Ocean named Brian Kinnes, who didn’t attend the beloved music festival, perused through numerous YouTube clips from other fans to cultivate the film of the singer’s controversial 80-minute set.

Following his upload of the dismal set on YouTube, AEG, who is also the parent company of Coachella, ordered for it to be taken down over copyright claims. 

In direct retaliation, Kinnes started sending it directly to fans via Dropbox and Google Drive, which led to AEG calling for a cease-and-desist order.

“I’m just combining what’s already publicly available,” Kinnes told the outlet. “Essentially, [AEG’s] claims are pretty frivolous and almost completely baseless.”

In addition, Kinnes also claims he isn’t profiting from the film.

“I’m not concerned with any legal repercussions because I do not plan on making a single penny from it,” Kinnes told Variety. “I will continue to upload it in places that [Ocean’s] legal team will not be able to find. I don’t know if I should tell that to a reporter … but it deserves to exist online.”

In terms of the time frame, it took him about 80 hours to coalesce the film together, claiming he downloaded 450 videos from 300 people who went to Ocean’s show, using around 150 for the final video.

“You cannot use our logo, our artwork, our imagery, or any of our other intellectual property for your own commercial benefit,” AEG’s cease-and-desist letter noted. ”The contents of your social media posts, use of our festival name, use of our festival content and other circumstances clearly indicate that you are using the intellectual property with intent to trade on the festival’s name and reputation,” It continued.

After AEG demanded that he delete any reference to Coachella on his website and social media accounts, Kinnes surrendered, though he reaffirmed the outlet that he was pretty certain that “the video is going to be online forever” since “hundreds of people were able to download it before everything got shut down, and those people are re-uploading it.”