Nirvana artist discussion

[areyoureadytojump]

Out today!

Target $7.99 (DE $19.99)
Best Buy $9.99 (DE $19.99)

[Deleted]

A 70 track edition is available on itunes

[Deleted]

I love Nirvana, and this is one of my favorite albums. Every song on this album kicks ass, it's a classic.

[TGAC]

Thanks to the reissue, the album repeaks on the UK chart; it reaches #5, improving on the #7 peak it had reached in early 1992.

[areyoureadytojump]

10/15 Billboard 200:

13 NIRVANA NEVERMIND 24,515 647 3,280 8,872,273

[areyoureadytojump]

RIAA.com:

NIRVANA
Title: MTV UNPLUGGED IN NEW YORK
Certification Date: February 24, 2020
Label: DGC
Format: ALBUM
8xP

[Gary]

Baby on Nirvana's 'Nevermind' Album Cover Pleads to Censor His Genitalia From 30th Anniversary Artwork
By Heran Mamo
9/24/2021
Click to copy
www.billboard.com/articles/news/9636109/nirvana-nevermind-baby-album-cover-plea-censor-genitalia-artwork/


Spencer Elden, the naked swimming baby on Nirvana's iconic 1991 album Nevermind cover, is pleading with the band on the album's 30th anniversary to have the artwork revealing his genitalia to be altered.

While fans, next-gen artists and the landmark album's producer Butch Vig are reflecting on the anniversary of Nevermind, which was released 30 years ago on Sept. 24, 1991, via DGC Records, Elden continues his fight over the naked photo of him as an infant. Now, he wants the image on all future reissues of the album -- some of which are dropping soon -- censored. The 30th anniversary editions of the album, which will be available starting Nov. 12, will feature more than 70 previously unreleased audio and video tracks. Elden and his attorneys at the Marsh Law Firm released a statement Friday about the matter, describing it as an issue of "consent," "child pornography" and "privacy."

"Today, like each year on this date, our client Spencer Elden has had to brace himself for renewed unwanted attention from the media and fans alike throughout the world. This is a choice that he has never had. It has been thrust upon him, and for 30 years he has dealt with its devastating and painful consequences," reads the statement shared with Billboard." "Our message to Nirvana is clear -- redact the image of Mr. Elden’s genitalia from all future album covers."

Billboard has reached out to Nirvana and Universal Music Group for comment.

In August, Elden's legal team filed a federal complaint in the United States District Court in the Central District of California against Nirvana, Kurt Cobain's estate, Universal Music Group, Warner Records, David Geffen, the photographer Kirk Weddle and others for "child pornography" and exploitation on behalf of Elden. The now 30-year-old claimed in the lawsuit that he never gave consent to the use of his image, due to just being 4 month old at the time, nor did his legal guardians, and that the grunge band had promised to cover up his genitalia with a sticker, which was never incorporated.

Since the lawsuit was filed, various lawyers familiar with entertainment law have questioned the suit. “I think it is highly unlikely that a record company would use a photograph for an album cover without verifying the existence of a release signed by the parents,” Bryan Sullivan, a partner at Early Sullivan, told The Hollywood Reporter. “But, if there is no release, it does not mean he has a claim for child pornography. As to the right of privacy, you can waive it by your actions or by his parents’ actions in allowing him to be photographed.”

Nevermind That Nirvana Child Pornography Lawsuit, Attorneys Say

Another entertainment litigator told THR: "I think what will be most troubling for any judge will be the amount of time that has elapsed since the photo was published, the fact the kid’s parents did this knowingly (more or less, but they knew the naked baby was being photographed), and the numerous times that the plaintiff himself embraced the photo and sought publicity for himself."

Nevermind went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, received a Grammy nomination for best alternative music album, is certified diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and was entered into the National Recording Registry in 2004. The critically acclaimed LP spawned the hits "Smells Like Teen Spirit," "Come as You Are," "In Bloom" and "Lithium.

[back2blk]

I was gonna say, how does the statute of limitations not apply here?

[🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾]

Given that the guy who was in that photo has run around telling anyone who will listen that it was him on the cover all those years ago and then has even re-created the image for various anniversaries, albeit with some clothing on, it will be difficult to convince people that this caused him the trouble and stuff that he says happened. He chose to do those things on his own.

But I have to go and ask why this image of the baby naked in the swimming pool was used for the cover and why did his parents have him photographed for that? It's just all kinds of wrong.

[SHOOTER]

Just look at the trauma on that face. I wonder who held him at gunpoint and forced him to recreate this.

Sept 24, 2021 21:46:46 GMT -5 🅳🅸🆂🅲🅾 said:

Given that the guy who was in that photo has run around telling anyone who will listen that it was him on the cover all those years ago and then has even re-created the image for various anniversaries, albeit with some clothing on, it will be difficult to convince people that this caused him the trouble and stuff that he says happened. He chose to do those things on his own.

But I have to go and ask why this image of the baby naked in the swimming pool was used for the cover and why did his parents have him photographed for that? It's just all kinds of wrong.

Kurt actually wanted to use an image of underwater birth but the images selected were deemed too graphic. Second idea was photographing babies at a swimming class but that didn’t work either so Plan C was the photographer asking his friends to shoot their baby and they agreed (for a rumored $200 payout).

Geffen suggested censoring the penis for the cover to which Kurt responded with copy for a sticker covering it that read: “if you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.”🙃

[Gary]

Nirvana Beats Lawsuit Claiming ‘Nevermind’ Baby Cover Was Child Porn

The now-adult man featured in the 1991 image called it "sexual exploitation," but a judge ruled that the case was filed far too late.





BY BILL DONAHUE


AA federal judge on Friday (Sept. 2) sided with Nirvana and dismissed a child pornography lawsuit filed by the man who appeared as a nude baby on the cover of the band’s 1991 album Nevermind, ruling that the case was filed years too late.



Spencer Elden, now in his 30s, claimed the album violated federal child pornography laws by displaying a sexualized image of a minor. But Judge Fernando M. Olguin ruled that the case was filed well past the statute of limitations for such cases.


Federal child pornography laws have a 10-year time limit that starts from when a victim “reasonably discovers” either the crime or the injury caused by it. Under either time limit, Judge Olguin said Elden had clearly filed his case too late.



“Because it is undisputed that plaintiff did not file his complaint within ten years after he discovered a violation that could form the basis for his [child pornography] claim, the court concludes that his claim is untimely,” the judge wrote.



Originally released Sept. 24, 1991, Nevermind reached the top spot on the Billboard 200 in January 1992 and ultimately spent 554 weeks on the chart. The album has sold more than 30 million copies and is widely considered one of the most influential in the history of popular music.



The album’s cover — a nude infant swimming in a pool chasing after a dollar attached to a fishhook — had long been interpreted as an edgy critique of greed and capitalism. But in a lawsuit filed last summer, Elden claimed it was something else entirely: the kind of “lascivious” display of a minor’s genitals that’s prohibited under federal child pornography statutes.



“Spencer’s true identity and legal name are forever tied to the commercial sexual exploitation he experienced as a minor which has been distributed and sold worldwide from the time he was a baby to the present day,” he wrote at the time.



In addition to Nirvana’s corporate entity, the lawsuit also named Kurt Cobain’s estate, Universal Music Group, Dave Grohl and a number of other companies and individuals.



Nirvana sharply disputed that the image amounted to child pornography, but argued first that the case should be dismissed for a simpler reason: the statute of limitations. They cited the fact that Elden had seemingly endorsed his role in rock history on a number of occasions prior to the 2011 – the cutoff year for the 10-year statute of limitations.



“Long before 2011, as Elden has pled, Elden knew about the photograph, and knew that he (and not someone else) was the baby in the photograph,” the band wrote in its motion to dismiss the case. “He has been fully aware of the facts of both the supposed ‘violation’ and ‘injury’ for decades.”



On Friday, Judge Olguin embraced that argument, saying it had been well more than 10 years since Elden discovered either the violation – the image itself – or the injury caused by it.



“Plaintiff does not dispute that he knew of injuries arising from defendants’ activities related to their use of his image on the Nevermind album cover more than ten years before he filed this action,” the judge wrote.



Elden’s attorneys can appeal the ruling if they choose to. They did not immediately return requests for comment on Saturday.

[Gary]

Nirvana Must Face Child Porn Lawsuit Over Naked Baby On ‘Nevermind’ Album Cover, Appeals Court Rules
A lower court had ruled that Spencer Elden waited too long to sue the band, but now a federal appeals court says the case is fair game.


By Bill Donahue

12/21/2023

A federal appeals court on Thursday ruled against Nirvana and revived a child pornography lawsuit filed by the man who appeared as a nude baby on the cover of the band’s 1991 album 

Nirvana
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Spencer Elden, now in his 30s, claimed the photo – one of the most iconic album covers in rock history – violated federal child pornography laws by displaying a sexualized image of a minor. But a lower ruled last year that he had waited far too long to bring his lawsuit.


In a decision overturning that ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that each new republication of the image – including a highly-publicized 30th anniversary re-release in 2021 — could constitute a new “injury” to Elden that would reset the statute of limitations.

“Victims of child pornography may suffer a new injury upon the republication of the pornographic material,” Judge Sandra Segal Ikuta wrote for a three-judge panel. “This conclusion is consistent with the Supreme Court’s view that every viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the victim’s abuse.”

The ruling does not mean that Elden has won the case. The lawsuit will now return to a lower court, where he must actually prove that the image meets the definition of child pornography – something Nirvana vigorously disputes and some legal experts doubt.

In a statement to Billboard, Nirvana’s attorney Bert Deixler called the ruling a “procedural setback” that did not affect their core arguments: “We will defend this meritless case with vigor and expect to prevail.”

An attorney for Elden did not immediately return a request for comment.

Originally released Sept. 24, 1991, Nevermind reached the top spot on the Billboard 200 in January 1992 and ultimately spent 554 weeks on the chart. The album has sold more than 30 million copies and is widely considered one of the most influential in the history of popular music.

The album’s cover — a nude infant swimming in a pool chasing after a dollar attached to a fishhook — was long interpreted as an edgy critique of greed and capitalism. But in his 2021 civil lawsuit, Elden claimed it was something else entirely: the kind of “lascivious” display of a minor’s genitals that’s prohibited under federal child pornography statutes.

“Spencer’s true identity and legal name are forever tied to the commercial sexual exploitation he experienced as a minor which has been distributed and sold worldwide from the time he was a baby to the present day,” he claimed at the time.

In addition to Nirvana’s corporate entity, the lawsuit also named Kurt Cobain’s estate, Universal Music Group, Dave Grohl and a number of other companies and individuals. The lawsuit was a civil action, and no allegations of criminal wrongdoing by anyone have been raised.

Nirvana sharply disputed that the image amounted to child pornography, but argued first that the case should be dismissed for a simpler reason: the statute of limitations. They cited the fact that Elden had seemingly endorsed his role in rock history on a number of occasions, including prior to the cutoff year for the 10-year statute of limitations.

“Long before 2011, as Elden has pled, Elden knew about the photograph, and knew that he (and not someone else) was the baby in the photograph,” the band claimed in its motion to dismiss the case. “He has been fully aware of the facts of both the supposed ‘violation’ and ‘injury’ for decades.”

In a ruling in September 2022, a federal judge agreed with Nirvana’s arguments. He ruled that the 10-year time limit began when a victim “reasonably discovers” either the crime or the injury caused by it – and that under either time limit, Elden had clearly filed his case too late.

But in Thursday’s decision, the Ninth Circuit said the time limits were more like those used in defamation cases and other “dignitary torts,” where a new repetition of the offending publication could give grounds to sue, despite the statute of limitations.

“The online dissemination of child pornography haunts victims long after their original images or videos are created,” the court wrote. “As the Supreme Court has explained, the victim’s knowledge of publication of the visual material increases the emotional and psychic harm suffered by the child.”

The court added later: “If a victim learns a defendant has distributed child pornography and does not sue, but then later learns the defendant has done so again many years later, the statute of limitations … does not prevent the plaintiff from bringing a claim based on that new injury.”