Nirvana members Krist Novoselic (from left) Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain pose after accepting the award for Best Alternative Video for “In Bloom” at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 2, 1993, at Universal City, California.
Mark J. Terrill / AP
hide captions
switch captions
Mark J. Terrill / AP
Nirvana members Krist Novoselic (from left) Dave Grohl and Kurt Cobain pose after accepting the award for Best Alternative Video for “In Bloom” at the MTV Video Music Awards on September 2, 1993, at Universal City, California.
Mark J. Terrill / AP
Teen Angst is well-rewarded, like NirvanaKurt Cobain sings. But a lawsuit from a man who appeared as a naked child on the band’s landmark Never mind The album was still unsuccessful: a federal judge dismissed the case again.
Spencer Elden is appealing the dismissal, his lawyers told NPR, arguing that the judge in the case misinterpreted the federal law on child sexual exploitation known as the Masha law. Elden said Nirvana and their record label profited from child pornography by selling popular albums featuring him on the cover.
Attorney Margaret Mabie said: “Most child pornography trades well into the adulthood of the victim. “Masha’s law allows victims to sue for each violation of their privacy while pictures of their childhood are still circulating.”
Elden, 31, was 4 months old when she was photographed underwater at the Pasadena Aquatic Center in California. A fish hook and dollar bill were later edited into the image. Elden said that surviving members of Nirvana, Cobain’s estate, and others had “taken advantage of the lewd nature of his image” to market and make millions of dollars from the hit album.
But the defendants say Elden himself had previously sought to graft his childhood fame into adult profit, enhancing his “Nirvana Baby” status by recreating photo and text copies. album signature.
Elden’s lawsuit, filed in August 2021, names the estate of Cobain and former bandmates, along with photographer Kirk Weddle, Universal Music, Geffen Records, Warner Records and MCA Music. It seeks at least $150,000 in punitive damages from each defendant, along with legal fees.
But Judge Fernando Olguin of the Central District Court in California dismissed Elden’s suit with prejudice, ruling that he waited too long to file. The judge invoked the statute of limitations of the law, which requires victims of child pornography to claim 10 years after they discovered the violation or caused their injury, or 10 years later when they turn 18 years old.
“Here, the plaintiff does not dispute that he was aware of the injury arising from the defendant’s activities in connection with their use of his image on the Internet. Never mind Olguin said.
Elden’s attorneys argued that the damage caused to him was still ongoing, and persisted in the years after he was no longer a minor. For example, they note that the band and the re-release label Never mind last year, with him on the album cover, to mark its 30th anniversary.
Under Olguin’s law, “measures against child pornography evaporate when the victim in the pirated photo turns 28,” Mabie wrote in an email to NPR. By this logic, any producer of child pornography—such as Masha Allen’s original abuser—just waits for the clock and then redistributes abusive material with impunity. . The fact that Spencer became a victim as a child remains frozen in time.”
But the defendants say that the statute of limitations of the law “cannot be suspended indefinitely while the plaintiff is fully informed that a person is known to have done the same thing to himself, in a similar manner, for more than 10 years. “
Olguin had previously dismissed Elden’s lawsuit in January, after his attorneys missed a deadline to respond to a request for defense. The judge allowed Elden’s team to file an amended complaint after that lawsuit – but his new ruling doesn’t set that deadline.
On Monday, Elden’s attorneys filed an appeal, seeking to take their case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
