LOS ANGELES (CN) — The man depicted on Nirvana's monumental 1991 album "Nevermind" when he was four months old renewed child porn claims after a judge threw out the case this month on a technicality.
Spencer Elden filed an amended complaint Wednesday in federal court in Los Angeles. His renewed bid to hold the former band members, the estate of the late Kurt Cobain, and Universal Music Group liable for violating federal child pornography laws focuses now on the past 10 years because the judge, in allowing him to amend his claims, had instructed Elden to address the record company's argument that the statute of limitations had run out.
"This unprecedented album cover is perhaps the first and only time a child’s full-frontal nudity has been used to sell a product, Elden's attorneys said in a statement Thursday. "Spencer's image constitutes child pornography and each of the Nirvana defendants robbed our client of his dignity and privacy."
Even though the album cover is 30 years old, the former band members and the record company have continued to promote and distribute what Elden calls child pornography during the last 10 years. For example, this past September the album with Elden's genitals on the cover was rereleased to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of "Nevermind," according to the amended complaint.
As a result, Elden says, he has suffered physical, psychological, financial, and reputational damage during the past 10 years. He seeks at a minimum $150,000 in statutory damages from each of the named defendants as well as attorneys fees.
Universal Music and the former band members have rebuked the claim the album cover amounts to child pornography, saying that under the law any nudity must be coupled with "other circumstances that make the visual depiction lascivious or sexually provocative" to fall within the parameters of the child pornography statute.
In their request to dismiss the lawsuit — which Elden missed the deadline to respond to, resulting in the dismissal — the defendants said Elden has spent 30 years profiting from his celebrity as "the self-anointed 'Nirvana Baby.'"
"He has reenacted the photograph in exchange for a fee, many times; he has had the album title 'Nevermind' tattooed across his chest; he has appeared on a talk show wearing a self-parodying, nude-colored onesie; he has autographed copies of the album cover for sale on eBay; and he has used the connection to try to pick up women," the defendants said in their motion to dismiss.
Lawyers for Universal Music and the other defendants didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the amended complaint.
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