Baby from Nirvana's Nevermind is suing over child pornography

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-58327844

Many thoughts on this.  Mainly that this is a money grab very thinly disguised behind child pornography.  Primary reason I think that is he has recreated the photo multiple times. 

Also, this excerpt from a GQ article. 

Also, late 80s-early 90s waterproof professional cameras were not subtle things, and Kirk Webble was/is a well known pro photographer.  These people honestly had him photographing their baby underwater with no questions?  I don't buy it.

The older I get, the more I realize that Douglas Adams was correct about planet Earth being colonized by the Golgafrinchans

100% money grab. 0% child pornography. What a joke. 

The guy is on record whining about having all the fame and none of the forture..... It's a cash grab.

I'd say if nirvana/their management had agreed to give the kid a royalty per album sold to be put into a trust fund that only the kid could access once 21 we never would have heard anything about his "plight"

Some things never change

Considering he's recreated it 4 times...

Money grab

superfund said:

Some things never change

According to an NPR interview with the father of the family, the photographer is supposedly a family friend.  That's interesting

Don't parents have to sign a waiver?

You know, "Berkeley Off" is not a phrase used by society nearly enough. Obvious money grab. Also, since his parents were the ones who allowed him to be used in that album cover, shouldn't he be suing them as well?

Since the album cover had come out in 1991 and the fact it has taken this long for anyone to do anything about it.

Money grab.

Whats the approach from Nirvana? settle? or he wins money and after law firm fees walks away with almost nothing and Nirvana takes him to court again so he walks away with nothing.....

I'm all for everyone taking everything they can from Courtney Love, since she killed Kurt and is just an all around E36 M3ty person, but this is just a bullE36 M3 cash grab. 

Varying levels of greed and thievery.

The combined wealth of the band members and Love is a lot closer to a billion dollars than it should be considering what they've done for it

"still on their cover"? Does he expect that they'd recall the albums to change the cover art? Does he honestly think that the cover art was responsible for their success? That's not how that works, that's not how any of this works.

Probably the most tasteful picture he has of his hootus. In the end the lawyers win.

He has admitted in other interviews that his parents received $200 for the shoot. More than the lawsuit that, for me, is of special interest since we do commercial photography, I'm just here for the delicious irony of the baby making a grab for a buck on the cover of Nevermind... making a grab for a buck because of the photo. See, Kurt, you really shouldn't've killed yourself/let Courtney off you because now you're missing this.

Margie

He began life portrayed as a baby chasing money, still a baby chasing money....

NickD said:

You know, "Berkeley Off" is not a phrase used by society nearly enough. Obvious money grab. Also, since his parents were the ones who allowed him to be used in that album cover, shouldn't he be suing them as well?

If he did that, he wouldn't be allowed to live in their basement.

Marjorie Suddard said:

He has admitted in other interviews that his parents received $200 for the shoot.

Margie

See, two things can be true. He can make a legitimate (IMHO) claim that he deserves some compensation for that all these years after the fact, despite legally having no grounds for it. I would think that he does deserve more, back when they did the shoot Nirvana was a complete unknown. That album became one of the biggest ever, and the image is immediately recognizable. He had no choice in whether he was on it or not, and now just about everyone born after 1975 has seen his willy. 

But to claim it is child pornography? C'mon. I also wonder if he lawyered up and asked the band about it, outside of the courts and outside of the press, what would have happened? Good chance it would have come out to his favor. This? Won't.

Ask him if he gets no money but all the 15 defendants go to jail instead, is he still interested? 

Isn't child porn a criminal thing not a civil thing?

"Why am I still on their cover if I'm not that big of a deal?"

Idiot. You were a baby. The closest baby they had cheap access to. You're not the cool kid in high school that everyone wanted to hangout with and made their album popular.

These kind of people have to know they spew lunacy and no one believes them, right? How do they go out in public knowing that everyone thinks they're a tool? Oh yeah, narcissism. 

Morality aside, I have no opinions about seeing an infant's penis.  I have changed a lot of diapers when I was a babysitter for my little cousins.  This album cover is depictive of the symbolism of showing how we teach our children about the love of money and "going to great depths at great risk" to get something that could be yanked away at any time.  It's the ultimate middle finger to corporate America, and by the way, you might catch a glimpse of a tiny vestigial piece of skin that will one day become a penis.

I also think that the impropriety of human nudity is a social construct that is way out of proportion.  We've generated a society in which genitals are completely taboo.  Men's breasts are fine, women's need to be covered.  Children's penises are a special kind of taboo because there might be 0.002% of the population that gets off on it. (not downplaying the caustic repercussions of child pornography and sexual abuse, I just don't see how a 4-month-old protopenis could have caused much damage)

We need to fix the misogynist/rape culture/patriarchy, not censor art because we are afraid.  Fix the problem, not cover up the symptom.

mtn said:

Marjorie Suddard said:

He has admitted in other interviews that his parents received $200 for the shoot.

Margie

See, two things can be true. He can make a legitimate (IMHO) claim that he deserves some compensation for that all these years after the fact, despite legally having no grounds for it. I would think that he does deserve more, back when they did the shoot Nirvana was a complete unknown. That album became one of the biggest ever, and the image is immediately recognizable. He had no choice in whether he was on it or not, and now just about everyone born after 1975 has seen his willy. 

But to claim it is child pornography? C'mon. I also wonder if he lawyered up and asked the band about it, outside of the courts and outside of the press, what would have happened? Good chance it would have come out to his favor. This? Won't.

But what is the claim though? "My parents were too stupid to negotiate a royalties clause in the contract they signed for my picture, so I deserve more money 30 years later, despite having made my own money recreating it through the years which would probably fall against the law if the contracts (and laws that bind them and the United States of Disney's draconian copyright laws) were actually read and enforced?"

The precedence that could set is a can of worms that only a really scummy lawyer would want to open. That's like victim agent level scummy.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Morality aside, I have no opinions about seeing an infant's penis.  I have changed a lot of diapers when I was a babysitter for my little cousins.  This album cover is depictive of the symbolism of showing how we teach our children about the love of money and "going to great depths at great risk" to get something that could be yanked away at any time.  It's the ultimate middle finger to corporate America, and by the way, you might catch a glimpse of a tiny vestigial piece of skin that will one day become a penis.

I also think that the impropriety of human nudity is a social construct that is way out of proportion.  We've generated a society in which genitals are completely taboo.  Men's breasts are fine, women's need to be covered.  Children's penises are a special kind of taboo because there might be 0.002% of the population that gets off on it. (not downplaying the caustic repercussions of child pornography and sexual abuse, I just don't see how a 4-month-old protopenis could have caused much damage)

We need to fix the misogynist/rape culture/patriarchy, not censor art because we are afraid.  Fix the problem, not cover up the symptom.

you... say things... well. Nicely done.

Ron Jeremy in jail for rape. 

Nirvana child porn

Michael Avenatti mistrial

What is the world coming to