Remember that spurious lawsuit regarding the cover of the classic Nirvana album, “Nevermind?” The cover famously features a nude baby floating in the middle of the water, complete with its baby bits being visible. Thirty years after the fact, that baby decided to sue for child exploitation amongst other allegations. That lawsuit has been thrown out. Again. For the second time.
Several elements of the lawsuit- brought by Spencer Elden the then-baby featured on the album cover- were a bit odd. Apparently the judge thought so too, specifically taking issue with how much time had elapsed between the picture being taken and the timing of the lawsuit. That said, an appeals court decided that was not reason alone to dismiss the lawsuit, and kicked it back down to Judge Fernando Olguin.
This time, Olguin ruled more on the direct elements of the case and came up with the same conclusion we did regarding the allegations of the picture being child pornography; It’s not. There’d a difference between a naked body and pornography. The nude form is not inherently sexual unless it’s performing or engaged in a sexual or lascivious act. In the case of the “Nevermind” photo, It’s simply a child in water with nothing sexual about it. Or as the judge put it themselves, “Neither the pose, focal point, setting, nor overall context suggest the album cover features sexually explicit conduct.”
Judge Olguin also pointed out the contradictory notion of Elden saying he was “damaged” by the album cover when he’d also been profiting off of its fame for years. “Plaintiff has, for many years, embraced and financially benefited from being featured on the album cover.” The judge stated. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim to have been damaged and seek compensation from something that you also used to market yourself successfully, because at that point it’d not exactly damaging, is it?
Hopefully this will actually put an end to the legal process but there is still the option to appeal on this new ruling. In a perfect world, the only thing that would be living on for Nirvana would be the music and not seemingly absurd lawsuits.
