Each of the big moments in music history made a few people rich but left most of the people who contributed to it empty-handed. Sure, Elvis Presley got rich singing “Hound Dog,” but he copied it note for note from Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton. Presley continues to draw millions of dollars in income each year, decades after his death, while Thornton died destitute in a Los Angeles boarding house. Music history is also replete with unsung contributors who sued, decades after the fact, for their fair share of the proceeds from the hit songs they helped to create. This month, after years of soul searching, the man who was photographed as an infant for the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind, has decided to sue the surviving band members and relevant companies for damages. Whether you are in the music business or any other industry, a San Diego business dispute lawyer can help you collect damages if you contributed to something big but were shut out when the money started coming in.
Nevermind Baby Grows Up and Demands His Day in Court
In 1991, the band Nirvana had asked photographer Kirk Weddle to take a picture of a baby in a swimming pool; they planned to use the image on the cover of their upcoming album. On a whim, Weddle asked his friend Rick Elden to have his four-month-old son Spencer photographed naked in the pool. Rick agreed and received $200 for his trouble. The image of baby Spencer Elden appeared on the cover of Nirvana’s album Nevermind, with an image of a dollar bill on a fishhook, which the baby appears to be swimming toward. Nirvana lead singer Kurt Cobain envisioned the cover as a statement on capitalism.
Capitalism did its thing, and 30 years later, the Nevermind cover is one of the world’s most recognizable album covers. Spencer Elden has had conflicting feelings about the image over the years. He has recreated the photo several times (always with a swimsuit), and as a young man, he got a tattoo of the word “Nevermind” on his chest. At age 30, he lives with his mother and spends his time growing tomatoes and making artwork. The thought passed through his mind several times over the years that he could be rich if he had been paid royalties for the use of his image. Things changed when he went to a baseball game a few years ago and realized that, thanks to the Nevermind cover, everyone in the audience had seen him naked. This year, Elden filed a lawsuit against the surviving members of Nirvana, Cobain’s widow Courtney Love, and various record companies, seeking $150,000 from each defendant. The lawsuit raises larger questions, though, about parents publicizing images of their young children.
Contact Foldenauer Law Group, APLC in San Diego, California to discuss potential liability and damages in your business dispute.