Plaintiff had until Jan 13th to refile
The lawsuit over Nirvana’s Nevermind artwork continues after plaintiff Spencer Elden has filed his second amendment complaint in court on Wednesday (Jan 12th). A California judge dismissed the suit “with leave to amend” on January 3rd after Elden’s team failed to respond by the court-mandated December 30th deadline.
The revised suit drops a sex trafficking allegation, and once again names photographer Kirk Weddle, Courtney Love, Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, Universal Music Group, the David Geffen Co., Warner Music Group, and others responsible for the estate of the late Kurt Cobain, as defendants.
Elden’s team had until January 13th to refile a second complaint, in which the court said it would “grant defendants’ Motion and give plaintiff one last opportunity to amend his complaint.” Nirvana has until January 27th to refile their suit to dismiss.
In his suit, Elden says 40 to 50 different sexually graphic images of Elder were produced with a “goal of enhancing and increasing the commercial success of Nirvana, L.L.C.’s Nevermind album.” The suit accuses frontman Kurt Cobain of being “instrumental in selecting Spencer’s image for the album cover” and “chose the image depicting Spencer — like a sex worker— grabbing for a dollar bill that is positioned dangling from a fishhook in front of his nude body with his penis explicitly displayed.”
Cobain agreed to place a sticker strategically over his genitals after receiving pushback from others. The sticker read, “If you’re offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.” However, the sticker was never incorporated into the album cover and left Elden fully exposed.
Elden is asking for $150k from each defendant.
