Nirvana wins lawsuit for second time after man claims notable album cover promotes child sexual abuse
Topics: Music, Dave Grohl
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: DCG/Kirk Weddle
Topics: Music, Dave Grohl
Nirvana has won a lawsuit for the second time after a man claimed the band’s most notable album cover promoted child sexual abuse.
US District Judge Fernando Olguin threw out the case filed by Spencer Elden, who argued the image on the band’s 1991 breakthrough album Nevermind amounted to sexual exploitation.
The cover shows Elden, then four months old, swimming naked underwater towards a dollar bill on a fish hook. It went on to become one of the most famous and enduring images in rock history.
Elden, now 34, argued that the photo caused him continuing harm and accused the band of distributing child sexual abuse imagery. He first sued Nirvana and Universal Music Group in 2021.
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However, Judge Olguin concluded on Tuesday (September 30) that the image did not meet the threshold for child pornography under federal law, adding that no reasonable jury would classify the photograph as such.
“Other than the fact that plaintiff was nude on the album cover,” Olguin said, nothing 'comes close to bringing the image within the ambit of the child pornography statute'.
Nirvana’s lawyer Bert Deixler welcomed the ruling, saying: “We are delighted that the court has ended this meritless case and freed our creative clients of the stigma of false allegations.”
The defendants in the case included surviving Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, as well as Kurt Cobain’s widow Courtney Love and the album’s photographer Kirk Weddle.
The original lawsuit was dismissed in 2022 when Olguin ruled that Elden’s claims were time-barred, without considering the full substance of his allegations. But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals later revived the case in 2023, paving the way for another hearing.
Olguin has now made clear that the lawsuit cannot proceed, likening the famous cover image to 'a family photo of a nude child bathing' rather than something pornographic.
The Nevermind album, which featured hits like 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, propelled Nirvana into global superstardom and cemented the band’s place in music history.
Elden, who has previously recreated the cover multiple times as an adult, claimed in his lawsuits that the image left him scarred and exploited.