[HN Gopher] Nirvana sued by the man who appeared on Nevermind's ...
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Nirvana sued by the man who appeared on Nevermind's album cover as
a baby
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 162 points
Date : 2021-08-25 09:35 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| In a sick dystopian world, which our world is not even
| approaching, the organization designated as the sole arbiter of
| what is to be considered child pornography, added the album cover
| to the registry of CSAM on the grounds that the plaintiff's
| arguments had something to them that resonated deeply with the
| people running the organization.
|
| Overnight, all Nirvana fans in the country became equated to sick
| pedophiles in possession of child pornography. Many got jailed,
| most just got onto the sex offenders list for life with no
| recourse available.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Another way of saying I desperately need money no matter how
| stupid the method
| Romulus968 wrote:
| He must be broke.
| honzzz wrote:
| I wish I could somehow steer attention from this guy and this
| topic to how great album it was.
| anthk wrote:
| It that's child pornography wait until you discover the zillions
| of pictures painted in Europe since the Middle Ages depicting
| nude people from a full range of ages just... standing naked with
| no sexual content.
|
| You know, the eye of the beholder...
| sowbug wrote:
| One interesting outcome of this lawsuit, whether it's successful
| or not, is that any future sort of artwork like this will be
| produced with GAN-based technology such as
| https://thispersondoesnotexist.com/. Why risk questions of human
| consent when humans can be taken out of the loop?
|
| Someone might even monetize it by running a GAN service that, for
| a fee, hashes all an image's GAN inputs plus a snapshot of the
| code and publishes the hash in an Ethereum block to prove that
| (1) the image really was produced synthetically, and (2) it was
| produced no later than a certain timestamp. TODO: include keyword
| "NFT" for maximum hype.
| LeoGovender wrote:
| Facebook logins
|
| Username = yagendreng@gmail.com
|
| Password = Alexiag123#
| paulpauper wrote:
| He should just do an NFT of the cover. probavby make way more $
| than any settlement
| croes wrote:
| Let's ask the model for the album cover of Killer Virgin from The
| Scorpions.
|
| Must be an american thing, nudity =sex
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Actually, they (The Scorpions) got a LOT of flak over that
| album cover and issued a groveling apology over it years later.
| It's not used as the album art for that album any more either.
| kzrdude wrote:
| It's hard to adjudicate if that image should be part of
| Wikipedia, but I would probably not include it (I would
| delete it from the articles), since it is on the border line.
| hulitu wrote:
| It's becomming also an european thing. Stupidity is contagious.
| I wonder how people will react to frescos of naked children
| depicted on european buildings.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| There is a difference between a fresco and a photograph.
| Thiez wrote:
| I know this one! The difference is that for the fresco the
| naked child had to pose for hours or days, instead of
| seconds?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"I know this one! The difference is that for the fresco
| the naked child had to pose for hours or days, instead of
| seconds?"
|
| No need to be a smartass. What thought do you think I'm
| trying to convey here?
| Thiez wrote:
| I don't know, please elaborate. The difference could also
| be that for a fresco the statue of limitations has
| expired? Or that the descendants of the "victims" have
| probably mixed with the descendants of the painters so
| that it is impossible to find out who should pay who.
|
| Perhaps you mean that the difference is that a fresco is
| art, but a photograph can't be art? In that case I
| imagine many photographers would disagree. I also imagine
| that you would disapprove of naked children on a fresco
| if that fresco were created today.
|
| My most charitable interpretation would be that the
| difference has something to do with cultural relativism.
| That the frescos that have existed for hundreds of years
| are acceptable because they were made in a time when not
| all nudity was considered sexual, kind of like we don't
| hate the ancient Greeks for pederasty even though it
| would be frowned upon in modern times. But now we know
| it's wrong and child abuse. If that is true then why
| don't we point to these frescos as a dark point in human
| history, like with slavery?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Essentially, a photograph is a near perfect capture of an
| individual. A fresco is a stylized representation of an
| individual. I an not saying photography isn't art. But
| rather, culturally, people are more willing to accept an
| abstract representation of a nude child rather than a
| photograph of one. I assume, because, people don't see
| the fresco as 'real' as a photograph.
|
| I'm sure cultural relativism plays a part, too. If
| something looks like a renaissance painting people are
| primed to accept it as art.
| majormajor wrote:
| The most obvious difference seems to be "a painting can
| be done without a specific live model."
| rory wrote:
| It's a cash grab thing. No one involved earnestly interprets
| the cover as sexual.
| drcode wrote:
| The Scorpions are a German rock band- look it up.
| LeoGovender wrote:
| What a fuckwit
|
| Facebook logins
|
| Username = yagendreng@gmail.com
|
| Password = Alexiag123#
| sharken wrote:
| Maybe I'm being a cynic, but why wait until the age of 30 to sue.
|
| It's more likely that Corona has taken a large chunk out of the
| cash flow, and now it would be nice with a boost of the finances.
| rhacker wrote:
| This is like one of those things where it wasn't really
| associated with anyone specific, until now.
|
| And I do wonder if he TELLS people he randomly meets that he's
| the nude swimming nirvana baby.
|
| All that being said, people change over their lifetime and this
| is likely a result of that.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| Lawyers exploiting perverted and archaic puritanical values many
| Americans still hold in order to squeeze out a quick buck. Truly
| and uniquely American.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| How many other people are still questioning how the album cover
| was ever approved and distributed at all? Yes, I know the article
| explains it was not illegal to do so, but still.
|
| Edit: Touched a nerve, apparently.
| mturmon wrote:
| As long as the thread is talking about money grabs, the cover
| chosen is the original one.
| nemo44x wrote:
| The one Cobain really wanted was a picture a birth which was
| deemed too graphic. Also consider this album wasn't expected to
| be anywhere close to the success it was in terms of sales. They
| ran out of copies for a little bit soon after it was released.
|
| Geffen was hoping it could sell maybe 200,000 copies globally
| to a mainly underground/indie audience and it wouldn't get
| picked up by the mainstream. For the follow up album the band
| agreed to change a song name and modify album art so Wal-Mart
| would carry it.
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| >Geffen were concerned that the infant's penis, visible in the
| photo, would cause offense, and prepared an alternate cover
| without it; they relented when Cobain said the only compromise
| he would accept would be a sticker covering the penis reading:
| "If you're offended by this, you must be a closet pedophile.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevermind#Artwork
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"If you're offended by this, you must be a closet
| pedophile."
|
| _Clearly._ Because apparently you can 't think "Wow, how did
| this get approved? It seems like such a violation of societal
| norms. I wonder how they managed to do it."
| bgeeek wrote:
| It would be quite amusing if the final verdict was, amongst other
| things, "Never mind"
| olivermarks wrote:
| This is a nightmare combination of bowdlerization of an important
| grunge era image and a sad cash grab. I wonder what went on with
| negotiations/haggling before the court case was filed. Very sad.
| wjp3 wrote:
| Waiting for the Apple CSAM detection for the album art in
| 3...2...1...
| nilawafer wrote:
| In 1991, the year "Nevermind" was released, the band Nirvana was
| not yet nationally known, and nowhere close in popularity to the
| internationally known super-legendary band they are viewed as
| now. Who knows if Nirvana would have even reached such levels of
| fame if Kurt Cobain were still alive today?
|
| Nirvana, before the release of "Nevermind", their first major
| label release ever, was just a local garage band from Aberdeen,
| WA (not even from Seattle). Nobody cared about them except some
| high school kids from Washington state who had seen them live.
| There was no internet, smart phones, or social media shaping our
| values and popular culture. People still listened to the radio
| and bought cassette tapes and CDs at local record stores. The
| majority of the social standards we are discussing here and now
| likely didn't even exist as widely shared common values in 1991,
| over 30 years ago.
|
| Dude wasn't the "Nirvana baby" - he was just the neighbor/ baby
| of friend of the family who happened to be there at the time. If
| they didn't use him, any other baby would have been fine. The
| idea of the photo/ album cover design would have been made into
| reality either way with or without him as the specific baby.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| Another unpopular opinion here but cash grab or not the facts are
| clear - he was a baby, he didn't consent to the photo, and a lot
| of people made a lot of money from it.
|
| The only internally consistent solution I can see is that
| children below age of consent should not be allowed to contribute
| to commercial art in any form. That'd mean no more child actors,
| and that would sound heretical to many, but I see no other
| solutio.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| Right now I'm looking at the instructions for a pediatric
| otoscope, showing how to use it on an infant, who probably
| didn't consent to this use of his photo.
|
| There are literally billions of photos of infants and young
| children used in instruction manuals, text books, advertising,
| and as stock photos.
|
| Should all of these be made illegal? Should manufacturers and
| advertisers be sued for using these photos without the
| subjects' consent?
| Zvez wrote:
| By this logic children can't have any surgical procedures,
| because u need to consent for that. That's why children have
| legal representatives.
| timoth3y wrote:
| Thirty years latter, and the same baby is still swimming after
| that dollar.
| h2odragon wrote:
| If you're embarrassed by a baby picture like that, just don't
| admit its you. Its not like people recognized this kid, right?
|
| "I've been harmed by having completely irrelevant and optional
| fame available to claim at my discretion" doesn't sound like a
| strong claim worth lots of money.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Yeah, I thought the same. He's probably only being recognized
| because he himself re-staged the album cover for Nirvana's
| 10th, 20th, and 25th anniversary.
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| I don't think the lawsuit will go anywhere, but I'm also not
| sure how much choice he would have had for the 10th
| anniversary cover. He would have still been young - what, 12
| or 13 at the oldest? - and could have easily been forced into
| it by his parents.
|
| But I am pretty sure that - as long as he wasn't fairly poor
| (which warps perception) - he could have told them no on the
| 20th and 25th.
| iamben wrote:
| Especially after saying: "It's always been a positive thing and
| opened doors for me." He even has a Nevermind tattoo on his
| chest (at least in the picture in the article, I appreciate it
| could have been added for one of the number of shoots that
| recreate the cover).
| kace91 wrote:
| Given that he has the name of the album tattooed on his chest,
| and he agreed to remake the picture as an adult 6 years ago
| (even offering to be naked, which the photographer rejected)
| I'm gonna say this is just an attempt to cash in.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > I'm gonna say this is just an attempt to cash in.
|
| A man's gotta have a little money to build his own swimming
| pool
| the_only_law wrote:
| A pretty pathetic attempt at that. If you're gonna pull this
| sort of stunt for the cash, at least try for a more
| impressive number.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| It is $150k _per defendant_ , of which there are 15. $7.5m
| is not a bad grab. Less costs etc.
| the_only_law wrote:
| Ah I misread that, that makes a bit more sense
| pelasaco wrote:
| from where I come from $150k * 15 = $2.25m...
| luckylion wrote:
| That's using the metric system, but he's suing in the US,
| you have to multiply by Pi and then round up a bit.
| dylan604 wrote:
| and multiply by 5 divide by 9 and subtract 32
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Ah yes. Never trust a mathematician to do sums.
|
| Though this is a bit embarrassing, this is 10^sth * 15^2,
| I really ought to know my squares. Getting the exponent
| right is a minor detail though.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Math not your strong suit or typo?
| amelius wrote:
| Well, in his defense: they taught him to chase money as a
| baby.
| lugged wrote:
| Probably but it sounds like he was roped into it as a young
| teenager to do the reshoots and I'm guessing if you're
| struggling it'd be hard to turn down secondary opportunities
| to make some money.
|
| I don't think you can use that to discount his real
| complaint, he got his baby photos used on a record and got
| almost nothing for it.
| [deleted]
| fastball wrote:
| I give "if you're struggling its hard to turn down money"
| about as much credence as I give stealing because you're
| poor.
| giuliomagnifico wrote:
| > Non-sexualised photos of infants are generally not considered
| child pornography under US law. However, Elden's lawyer, Robert
| Y. Lewis, argues that the inclusion of the dollar bill (which was
| superimposed after the photograph was taken) makes the minor seem
| "like a sex worker".
|
| This (the dollar as a sex worker) seems to a difficult position
| to hold. We'll see what will happen in court.
|
| Edit: I've always thought the dollar was here to say "everyone
| want to be rich, also newborns", or something similar, never
| thought the newborn as a sex worker.
| NoSorryCannot wrote:
| Even if it _did_ suggest that, the conclusion that that would
| make it pornographic is very silly.
|
| Such a thing would still most probably be intended as a
| critical observation about the sorts of people that innocent
| babies become, rather than a literal depiction of a baby
| prostitute.
|
| It's wow ridiculous.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| The lawyer, this Robert Y. Lewis, seems to be a real sick
| person. I'm not keeping my kids in his vicinity. What if
| _something_ makes him think they are underage sex workers and
| approach them with a dollar to buy the services from them?
| estomagordo wrote:
| > never thought the newborn as a sex worker.
|
| probably because that's a completely ridiculous connection that
| nobody makes
| briane80 wrote:
| Telling on themselves
| cblconfederate wrote:
| LOL! I wonder if, having a dirty mind like that to make that
| association, should auto-add you to some child predator list.
| None of this is sane, but in this crazy witch hunt, the witch--
| hunters themselves are not excluded.
| bitwize wrote:
| I thought the implication was quite clear: a (somewhat jejune)
| critique of consumerist society by implying we're made to chase
| the "almighty dollar" from a very young age.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I took it slightly more subtly as society using consumerism,
| which we are inherently attracted to, as bait to hook us into
| things which are not in our best interest.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Any lawyers want to weigh in. Surely his parents signed his
| rights away for the 200 no?
| [deleted]
| luckyandroid wrote:
| Could have sworn I'd seen interviews/articles before about how
| this person doesn't care and uses it to brag to his friends.
| kennywinker wrote:
| We all process things differently, but making a joke of
| something that hurts is a VERY common way of dealing.
|
| Idk if his claims of trauma are real or not, but I'll tell you
| what - that image was worth more than the ~$200 his parents got
| for it and on those grounds alone I'd award him a few hundred
| thousand.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Why do you think it would be worth more than $200? People
| bought the album for the music, not the cover. And even if
| the art might be worth more, wouldn't it be the photographer
| who made the image that deserved it? Any other baby could
| substitute, and it would be essentially the same image. What
| unique quality did this particular baby contribute?
| technothrasher wrote:
| You'd wish the courts to bail out anybody that ever made a
| deal that turned out not so great?
| kennywinker wrote:
| I mean yeah pretty much. We live in a world where you could
| sell a painting at a garage sale for $1 and someone could
| turn around and sell it for $10,000 the next day. That's
| not any more "right" than a world where you morally and
| legally had to share any profits with where you bought it.
| I'd like to live in the more fair less cutthroat world
| thanks
| [deleted]
| smhenderson wrote:
| That's certainly possible - the article quotes him from a few
| years ago talking about how it's been a positive experience
| that opened doors for him.
| Borrible wrote:
| So after 30 years, he's still after that dollar?
|
| So apparently he still can't keep his head above water on his
| own.
|
| Well my sympathy goes more to guys like Aqualung and its painter
| anyway:
|
| https://theoutline.com/post/4490/jethro-tull-aqualung-cover-...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17052400
|
| If I were Spencer Elden, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.
|
| Nevermind.
| toyg wrote:
| Looks like Spencer wants a cracker. I hope he gets forced to
| make all apologies.
| iAm25626 wrote:
| Found the Nirvana fan. Never know how dark the song "Polly"
| is about until recently.
| Ceiling wrote:
| He literally has "Nevermind" as a tattoo across his chest. You
| can see it in the swimming picture.
| bdavid21wnec wrote:
| If this guy had a brain, he would be trying to get the rights to
| his image and instead create an NFT of the cover and sell it for
| millions. Instead I hope he gets nothing
| noxer wrote:
| https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Small%20PP%2...
| hermitsings wrote:
| "Smells like greed spirit."
| https://twitter.com/fookingods/status/1430468274412670976
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Someone is hard up for cash, not sure if it's the attorney or the
| plaintiff.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Quick, let's add that photo to the NCEC(sp?) database and have
| Apple scan all iPhones worldwide for it!
| maverwa wrote:
| This, to me, looks like a case where both parties are "wrong". I
| think its wrong to put photos of people who cannot (or have not)
| agreed in the public, especially photos of children, even more so
| when its not just some publication, but your damn Album cover.
| Also looking at you, scorpions. But I also think the "the dollar
| makes it look like a sex worker" spin is ridicoulus. Sounds to me
| like a claim that just exists to spin up the media and make sure
| the original claim ("you did not have the right wo put that image
| on that cover without covering") gets through.
|
| So yeah, I guess that guy should get some of the Nirvana money.
| But cut the sex worker crap.
| moistoreos wrote:
| These are allegations. The judge will decide what grounds these
| allegations have appropriately. It's not likely the sex worker
| has any grounds and will be tossed out. I presume it's just to
| beef up the lawsuit.
|
| "Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks", if you
| will.
| rualca wrote:
| > I think its wrong to put photos of people who cannot (or have
| not) agreed in the public, especially photos of children (...)
|
| The article mentions that the plaintiff's parents were paid
| $200 by a photographer who was a friend of the family to have a
| photoshoot,and go as far as claiming that they were unaware of
| the whole pro photoshoot they held at the pool and were paid
| $200 to join was a photoshoot.
|
| They also state that the record company even gave the
| plaintiff's family a commemorative record and a teddy bear a
| couple of months after the album release.
|
| From this newspiece alone, and ignoring the fact that the
| plaintiff is known for having been milking his role in
| Nirvana's album cover since ever, it's hard to believe that a)
| the plaintiff and his whole family were not fully aware they
| willingly participated in a commercial photoshoot for which
| they were paid for, b) the plaintiff had an epiphany and change
| of heart regarding the event and suddenly felt he was a victim.
| fastball wrote:
| So literally there should never be anyone under 18 featured in
| any sort of media?
| Kye wrote:
| I haven't heard many positive stories from former child
| actors who talk about their experiences. The stories usually
| involve parents abusing their authority over the kid to make
| them chase fame for the parent's benefit. There should at
| least be more protections to ensure kids used in media aren't
| left with nothing other than jokes about that thing they did
| as a kid from strangers.
| judge2020 wrote:
| To add support, this is basically Jennette McCurdy's story,
| although she doesn't blame her parents for it.
| https://www.bustle.com/entertainment/why-isnt-sam-in-the-
| ica...
| IMTDb wrote:
| Selection bias ? How many child actors play in a few TV
| episodes, probably have a bit of fun and earn a bit of
| money, then disappear from the spotlight. You never hear
| from those because there is nothing to say.
| nitrogen wrote:
| That's selection bias. You never hear from them because
| they weren't famous enough to hear from. I know someone
| who modeled/acted a couple of times as a kid, not
| remotely famous, and yeah, it wasn't good for them. But
| you'll never hear their story, because they weren't
| famous.
| cheschire wrote:
| At first I thought you were being ridiculously extreme in
| your interpretation, but now I realize you were referring to
| the legal age of consent, as the parent was.
|
| It's a good point, and I think the age of consent is varied
| by state and country for just this reason.
| smnrchrds wrote:
| Some countries have one age at which all the rights and
| responsibilities suddenly apply. It doesn't have to be like
| that. In some countries, drinking age and voting age and
| driving age and smoking age and signing a contract age are
| all different.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| Well, not naked at least.
| maverwa wrote:
| Luckily, I am no law maker but a random guy with opinions on
| the internet. But no, I would not say that we should ban
| every depiction of non-adults from all media. That would be
| way to broad. And I am not saying the "what" and "how" is
| something I can answer nor did I think about it in detail. I
| think the rule "should" be something between what we have now
| and what what you suggested (and what my original post might
| suggest). Where exactly, I cannot answer. But thanks for
| pointing out that my original formulation was lacking.
| ghaff wrote:
| There _are_ rules around sexual content in particular in
| the US (which may differ by state) and certainly around
| under-age sexual content. Which this was not considered to
| be. (That said, I doubt any record label would sign off on
| that cover today.)
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Tell that to Mila Kunis (Baywatch at age 11) the Olsen twins
| (Full House as literal babies) Kaley Cuoco (first film
| appearance at 11yo) and thousands of other sucessful people who
| got thier big breaks as children. Children are part of the
| entertainment industry and always have been. An industry
| without them would look very strange.
|
| Harry Potter, but Harry is 18yo on his first day at Hogwarts.
| Every family sitcom disappears. And what about work entirely
| _created_ by kids? I guess highschool drama clubs are out too.
| This gets very strange very quickly.
| [deleted]
| hinkley wrote:
| To be fair, The Magicians is magic college instead of magic
| grade school, but it's more common in literary magic systems
| for the child to discover magic after puberty, in which case
| magic high school might make more sense.
|
| And are you really going to claim that the Olsens are normal?
|
| When did Mickey Rooney start talking about how kids are
| treated in Hollywood? I'm surprised that at this point we
| have the ASPCA but no equivalent organization chaperoning
| kids on movie sets. Not only should this exist, but I think
| it should have an oversight board of former child actors.
| Foster, Barrymore and Feldman for instance would have a lot
| of hard questions to ask.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Given that one if them is now an Avenger, I wouldn't tell
| her that her career path was any sort of mistake. She can
| decide that for herself.
| hinkley wrote:
| She is not an Olsen twin.
|
| Barrymore has no qualms talking about how rough things
| got for her. One of her things is offering sometimes
| unsolicited advice to young actors about avoiding her
| worst mistakes. Foster simply doesn't talk much to
| anybody, and only part of that was because she was in the
| closet for decades (came out in '13, but apparently was
| an open secret as far back as '93 when an LGBT friend
| outed her to me). She fucked off to France to get some
| peace and quiet. Both of these have had careers at least
| as good as Olsen's.
|
| Feldman, as far as I'm aware, still hasn't named the
| person who was ultimately responsible for Haim's suicide,
| even after #MeToo and Weinstein's defrocking.
|
| All three have strong opinions about what constitutes
| sketchy. I'm not clear if the Olsen Twins have registered
| the ways that they could have had a better life and that
| makes me sad.
|
| I don't recall if it was Barrymore or someone else who
| said that the problem with being a famous child is that
| you are too young to really understand friendship yet,
| and once people want things from you it's very hard to
| learn about it, because so many people are investing
| energy in pretending to be your friend. Imagine going
| through life not knowing what real friends look like.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Then go tell the next britney spears or taylor swift that
| she isn't allowed to perform until she is 18. Waitress?
| Sure. Dig ditches on a farm? Ok. Sing a song and get paid
| for it? Nope. That is adult stuff. Can she dance at the
| olympics or is that also performing?
| djrogers wrote:
| Neither of the Olsen twins is Wanda - Elizabeth Olsen is
| their younger sister.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Thanks. That is the limit of my olsen sister knowledge.
| dylan604 wrote:
| were any of the people you mentioned or other child actors
| forced to perform in the nude?
| wesleywt wrote:
| We had no idea who this non descript nude baby was until he
| recreated his own photo. America is sexualizing children
| and creating a moral panic on it. Not all nudity is sexual.
| Please grow up America.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The olsen twins? Id have to check. Maybe. I saw a nude kid
| on a documentary last night about surfers called The 100
| Foot Wave. Look for the infamous clip of Cuoco from Growing
| Up Brady, or the coconut bikini clip of Kunis from
| That70sShow. I think those were very exploitative,
| certainly far more so than the Nevermind cover.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| > He also alleges the nude image constitutes child pornography.
|
| I hope he wins and creates a precedent so the degree of absurd in
| this field gets serious and the shit hits the fan. This would be
| so fun.
|
| PS: I don't advocate actual child porn but I do advocate nudity.
| maverwa wrote:
| Uh, thats an interesting idea. Now I hope he wins, too!
| [deleted]
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > He also alleges the nude image constitutes child pornography...
| However, Elden's lawyer, Robert Y. Lewis, argues that the
| inclusion of the dollar bill (which was superimposed after the
| photograph was taken) makes the minor seem "like a sex worker".
|
| I wish the courts were ok with a response of "Are you fucking
| kidding me, or are you just batshit insane?" Even remotely
| arguing that this is somehow like child pornography is a grave
| disservice to all the actual victims of child porn. I sometimes
| wonder what it's like to go through life with absolutely no
| shame.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > I wish the courts were ok with a response of "Are you fucking
| kidding me, or are you just batshit insane?"
|
| It didn't involve the courts (at that stage), but Arkell versus
| Pressdram comes close to this. If you haven't come across it
| before it's a short and sweet read.
|
| https://lettersofnote.com/2013/08/07/arkell-v-pressdram/
| [deleted]
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It wasn't child porn when it was created, but times change. I
| have noticed that the BBC has started censoring the image (
| _QI_ ) whereas British productions in the past have not (
| _TheBoatThatRocked_ ). Jurisprudence changes. Since Nevermind
| was published, even nudity is no longer a requirement for child
| porn in the US. While I don't agree, I don't think the question
| is the total slam dunk it was decades ago.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yes; I'm quite confident that this would never be an album
| cover today. But you can't generally sue of the basis of some
| past activity that was legal at the time even if it's not
| today.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| But it is being republished daily today. When material is
| deemed illegal, new copies cannot be created/sold today on
| the basis that they were legal yesterday.
| ghaff wrote:
| There would probably be a pretty high bar to get this
| declared illegal as opposed to sufficiently adjacent as
| to be controversial on something like an album cover. It
| pretty clearly does not meet the DOJ definition although
| other countries, perhaps including the UK, may have
| stricter/different standards. (And it was and would be
| obviously illegal to distribute in some countries.)
|
| https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/child-pornography
|
| ADDED: And, no, I would not be putting this album cover
| in my carry-on to get on a plane. I don't really expect a
| random TSA agent to be up on legal details of what
| photography is OK and what isn't.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| Don't worry, just hit the _next album_ button (but hope
| that it doesn 't random over to _Virgin Killer_ by the
| Scorpions).
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. Strip away the context of it being an album cover
| that's been out for a long time and I wouldn't like to be
| the person trying to argue with law enforcement or a
| judge why that photo/artwork is perfectly OK.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| It still isn't child porn. There is nothing sexual or obscene
| about this picture and the purpose isn't so, either. There
| are many, many works of arts, including religious ones, in
| which infants are depicted in the same way.
|
| The term is being used for PR and sensationalistic purposes
| in relation to a civil lawsuit.
| [deleted]
| refurb wrote:
| Courts will respond that way, minus the profanity. Usually it's
| an immediate approval of a motion to dismiss with prejudice
| which means final decision and don't dare even argue about it.
| ravenstine wrote:
| If he wanted to sue, he really should have just gone for the
| consent angle and not the child porn one. Who exactly would
| agree that it's pornographic or exploitative? I doubt the vast
| majority of reasonable people would see the body of an infant
| in its natural form as anything but innocent on its own, but
| what do I know. They should have to demonstrate that the dollar
| bill makes people see the art as depicting child sex work; if
| this is requested somehow by the defendants, _the glove won 't
| fit_. This may be a missing detail, but he should have just
| asked the record company for some money before escalating it.
| If he did that and they refused, I'm sure that would have been
| a part of the news story.
|
| The logical end to the argument is that children should never
| appear in any kind of commercial media because they can't
| consent, which... _come on man_. Worst of all, though I 'm no
| lawyer, it seems like there's definitely a non-zero chance
| he'll get counter-sued by each defendant when his own lawsuit
| falls apart.
| [deleted]
| mLuby wrote:
| > The logical end to the argument is that children should
| never appear in any kind of commercial media because they
| can't consent
|
| That's not _so_ unreasonable, considering how child stardom
| seems to mess with kids. Maybe better motion capture+deep
| fake tech will let professional actors appear as kids in
| media. Abolishing child labor may have seemed as ridiculous a
| few hundred years ago as this does today.
| dcow wrote:
| No thank you. Children should not be _prohibited_ from
| acting any more than they should be prohibited from working
| at Chik-fil-a. How is an adult actor supposed to play a
| toddler? What are you talking about?
| erhk wrote:
| Child labour is illegal
| porpoisemonkey wrote:
| Is this universally true? In the US it appears that it
| just means there's more restrictions to what types of
| jobs you can/can't do and the hours you're allowed to
| work, but AFAIK it's not actually illegal to work as a
| child.
|
| https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/YouthRules/young-
| workers/no...
| Teever wrote:
| Define child. Define labour.
|
| In my justification 14 years can legally hold some jobs.
|
| Are girl scouts going door to door and selling cookies
| performing labour?
|
| Children unloading and loading the dishwasher at home?
| [deleted]
| ravenstine wrote:
| Equating any appearance of children for artistic or
| commercial purposes to child stardom isn't particularly
| reasonable. Having known my share of child actors (one in a
| minor hit series and was in several movies, another in a
| full season of a show that never took off, and one who was
| in lots of music videos), I don't believe there is anything
| inherently bad for a child being depicted in media _except_
| stardom, which is arguably negative consequences for many
| _adults_.
|
| Elden isn't a star of anything. His infant likeness appears
| on an album in the 90's and 99.99999% of people don't know
| who the hell he is. His argument is that the mere
| appearance of his naked infant body with a superimposed
| dollar bill is child exploitation of sexual nature. In
| spite of his current stance, he's taken photos in his
| adulthood that resemble the album art in question (albeit
| with swim trunks on), the argument seems disingenuous and
| out of left field, and he could never claim to have been
| damaged by some sort of stardom because nobody identified
| him until he literally _outed himself_ as the baby on that
| cover.
| kevingadd wrote:
| It's normal for a lawsuit to throw every possible thing that
| could stick in and hope that one of them survives - consent
| is also part of this lawsuit
| corndoge wrote:
| At the same time he never consented to a nude image of himself
| being plastered on one of the most popular albums ever made.
| Even if it is a cash grab I think he's got a point.
| Zelphyr wrote:
| His parents consented for him. If he wants to sue anyone, he
| can try going after them. I think he'll get about the same
| outcome as this lawsuit, though.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| >> His parents consented for him.
|
| According to the article, there was informal consent but no
| signed release. I'm was pretty surprised to hear that --
| isn't obtaining releases pretty standard for large
| corporations?
| Zelphyr wrote:
| I think things like that were handled quite a bit more
| loosely back then. If memory serves, the cover of one of
| the Deftones albums (the one with the girl in the bathing
| suit I believe?) came from a random shot taken at a party
| and the subject didn't even know about it until the album
| was released.
| cherrycherry98 wrote:
| Same situation Matchbox 20's Yourself or Someone Like
| You, one of the most popular albums of the 90s. The guy
| on the cover apparently never consented to his photo
| being used and went after them years later.
| corndoge wrote:
| I think that the idea that parents can post nude pictures
| of you without your consent is bullshit, which was a
| subtext of my op.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Well, if you have kids, especially newborns, you do take
| and send a whole lot of pictures. That alone suggests
| Apple CSAM thing will have a busy time trying to figure
| out which is CP and which is just a parent sharing their
| own kid pictures.
|
| Naturally, it does not help that we now effectively have
| no privacy.
| jonplackett wrote:
| The reason you're getting down voted, I would guess, is
| that that is not the way CSAM scanning works.
|
| Apple have a list of photos they know are CSAM, or rather
| hashes of them, and the look for those and only those on
| your device.
|
| They _also_ introduced another thing that scans your kid
| 's incoming and outgoing messages for what look like
| dodgy photos - that _does_ look at general photo content
| (rather than compare to a list) which has been the source
| of a lot of the confusion.
|
| (FWIW I still think the CSAM scanning is an incredibly
| bad idea and horribly slippery slope to start sliding
| on.)
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I don't mind. I do find the reaction interesting though.
|
| In a practical sense, they could have called it anything
| and since they announced it in the same breath, my mental
| map keeps it under the same umbrella. It is not on me
| that Apple communicates poorly.
|
| But lets get past that. The 'dodgy photos' functionality
| ( because that was indeed what I was referring to vs hash
| db ) is where it is going to get tricky. I am sure there
| will be parents, who will absolutely love it. Just as I
| am sure that there will be ones who think this will not
| end well.
| nullc wrote:
| > Apple have a list of photos they know are CSAM, or
| rather hashes of them
|
| Technically, that government agencies claim are CSAM and
| the "hash" is highly vulnerable to preimage attacks: I
| can take random unrelated photos and make them match
| other hashes, https://github.com/AsuharietYgvar/AppleNeur
| alHash2ONNX/issue...
|
| This means people can take child porn images and modify
| them so they match targeted innocent images, and take
| innocent images and modify them so they match child porn.
| ghaff wrote:
| You're probably getting downvoted because Apple CSAM does
| not look at a photo in isolation and "decide" whether it
| crosses the line into child pornography or not. It's
| comparing hashes to a child porn database as I understand
| it.
| S_A_P wrote:
| That is a whole other ball of wax. Age of consent is a
| thing. As a parent I wouldn't choose to let my child be
| part of that sort of photo. I also don't think his
| parents had any malice in putting Spencer in that photo.
| Until recently he seemed completely ok with drawing
| attention to the photo by recreating it multiple times
| and giving interviews.
|
| Let's not pretend that he would be suing Nirvana if that
| album sold 5000 copies either.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| That's what makes this so highly probable that it is just
| a vulgar money grab. The image was recreated when he was
| 10, and again in 2016 (!).
| Normille wrote:
| He needs to sue his parents for getting such a shit deal
| for use of the photo, in the first place. I'll bet if,
| instead, they'd negotiated a penny for every copy of the
| album sold, he would be overjoyed that 'everyone in the
| world' had seen his chipolata.
| void_mint wrote:
| Is 300k worth that much to you?
| [deleted]
| nipponese wrote:
| I would love to business with the record exec who decided
| it had to be THAT baby and agreed to pay royalties for
| such a generic looking baby.
| hackersword wrote:
| >Elden says his parents never signed a release authorising
| the use of his image on the album.
| jonplackett wrote:
| If that's true, then why isn't he pursuing that as an
| argument rather than claiming it's child porn?
| kevingadd wrote:
| He can pursue multiple issues in a single lawsuit, it's
| not weird for some but not all of the claims in a case to
| be dismissed
| lifty wrote:
| The consent was given by his legal parent. So he should sue
| them not Nirvana.
| corndoge wrote:
| Perhaps he should. Nirvana has more money though and one
| must operate within the incentive structure of the US legal
| system.
| lifty wrote:
| I think I understand the motivation. Sad state of
| affairs. We are on our way to total loss of trust in
| societal institutions, and trying to take full advantage
| of the incentive structure, without any other
| considerations. In other words, we are getting to the
| "fuck it!" phase of the process.
| balls187 wrote:
| What would he sue them for?
| darkmarmot wrote:
| money?
| balls187 wrote:
| Hah. Yeah.
|
| Sorry I meant, what would be the legal basis for the
| suit?
| Bedon292 wrote:
| The same argument: He didn't consent to them allowing
| Nirvana to use the photo.
|
| Nirvana _should_ be covered by his parents giving their
| consent, since they was his legal guardian. If he doesn
| 't think that consent should have been given he needs to
| go after the people who gave it. But I don't think that
| case would go very far either.
| hackersword wrote:
| Don't know if it is true or not, or how affects claim ...
| but he claims
|
| >Elden says his parents never signed a release authorising
| the use of his image on the album.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| A written signed document is not the only way to make a
| legal agreement, it's just the most easily referenced and
| proven one. The parents consented to letting a
| professional photographer take photos of their child to
| use in commercial work, and nobody appears to dispute
| that.
| burnished wrote:
| Is it really an image of "himself" though? Being a baby is
| more like a larval form, there isn't really a connection for
| an audience to make between a photo of a newborn and a photo
| of an adult. What I'm trying to get at is usually when you
| say something like "nude image of himself" we are used to
| thinking that the image is an identifying one. But a baby
| picture isn't identifying in the same way, even to yourself,
| until some one informs you of the connection. It feels like a
| different circumstance, you know?
| ghaff wrote:
| Given that it was legal content and his parents consented,
| why is it any different from "stage mothers" and others
| consenting to (and indeed pushing) their children into any
| number of ads, photo shoots, TV, film, etc.?
|
| Otherwise any adult who felt embarrassment over their
| appearance in media as a minor could sue and parental consent
| to do those activities has no meaning.
|
| ADDED: And if your response is that "But he was nude" then
| your beef is with the law that didn't make this illegal.
| There are of course borderline cases. See Brooke Shields in
| "Pretty Baby" for example which caused quite a bit of
| controversy at the time. (And, indeed, as I wrote elsewhere,
| I'm pretty sure no major record label would go near this
| cover with a 100 foot pole today not because it would likely
| be illegal but because it would be a lightning rod.)
| void_mint wrote:
| > Given that it was legal content and his parents
| consented, why is it any different from "stage mothers" and
| others consenting to (and indeed pushing) their children
| into any number of ads, photo shoots, TV, film, etc.?
|
| The nudity and the scale.
| vlunkr wrote:
| The parent comment has addressed the nudity, but the
| scale really doesn't make it different legally.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > the scale.
|
| I don't think anyone expected this album to be a
| commercial success, much less one of the most iconic rock
| albums in history.
| canadianfella wrote:
| > Otherwise any adult who felt embarrassment over their
| appearance in media as a minor could su
|
| Why would that be a bad thing?
| hackersword wrote:
| >Elden says his parents never signed a release authorising
| the use of his image on the album.
| ghaff wrote:
| But his parents were apparently paid.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| That doesn't mean there was consent and model release
| paperwork.
|
| The record company should (only slightly ironically) keep
| records.
|
| If they exist this case is going nowhere. If they don't -
| that might get interesting.
| patrickthebold wrote:
| One would think there'd be some kind of implied consent.
|
| It's hard to imagine a situation where a record company
| ends up with naked pictures of someones kid, the parent
| gets paid, and the parent is genuinely not ok with the
| pics appearing on an album cover.
|
| I agree it's more interesting if there's no consent form,
| but I still would hope the court would side with the
| record company.
| tibbon wrote:
| I wonder if that payment serves as some sort of
| understanding/contract.
|
| The money was given for some reason. What reason did the
| parents think?
| nickff wrote:
| Accepting payment is usually understood to indicate
| acceptance of the terms of a contract. A contract
| generally requires: offer, acceptance, a clear intention
| to interact (create a legal relationship), and
| consideration (money or goods/services). One very
| interesting example of the significance of accepting
| payment is the lease for the Guantanamo Bay naval
| facility.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN17200921
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Not a lawyer but I sat jury duty on a contract dispute.
|
| A verbal agreement absolutely can be an enforceable
| contract. The crux is whether there was a meeting of the
| minds. Of course, without documentation this is hard to
| prove, so you find people arguing it either direction in
| legal disputes.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| Without an explicit contract I think it would be hard to
| argue they consented to commercial use of the photo, even
| if they accepted a payment at the time.
| nickff wrote:
| What else would they have thought they were getting paid
| for? A picture was taken, and they got paid; the only
| logical reason for them to be paid would be that there
| was some commercial value to the photo.
| akiselev wrote:
| Does it really matter? The evidentiary standard is
| "preponderance of the evidence" so it's pretty much up to
| the defendant to prove that they had consent as long as
| the plaintiff can prove it was him on the cover. That's
| why some states even require the release to be in writing
| rather than a verbal agreement.
| nickff wrote:
| Well, I can almost guarantee that the first question that
| the defendant's counsel will ask in discovery is whether
| payment was accepted in connection with the photoshoot.
| The second question will be what the parent thought the
| payment was for.
|
| A written agreement definitely helps to clarify the
| matter, but is neither necessary nor sufficient to
| guarantee a resolution.
| crazygringo wrote:
| He can say whatever he wants, but that would seem
| extremely unlikely.
|
| Major record companies have legal departments. They're
| not going to greenlight an album cover without rights to
| the images. Anyone who works in publishing knows how
| strictly this stuff is treated at a major label.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Probably worth it to bet they lost the paperwork and get
| a settlement.
| stickfigure wrote:
| There is zero chance that his parents did not consent.
| It's not like someone just stole their baby for a few
| hours.
| shams93 wrote:
| If they didn't have a signed release then they're basically
| using this without permission which is a civil violation.
| void_mint wrote:
| Eh I mean. There is a naked photo of this person as an infant,
| that they inherently didn't consent to, being circulated all
| over the world + internet.
| mzs wrote:
| This album was released when I was in HS and a classmate was
| asked by a teacher to turn her t-shirt with the album cover
| inside-out. She asked why and the teacher said it could be CP.
| She turned the shirt inside-out. I felt the teacher had a
| reasonable POV.
| feudalism wrote:
| JFC, what kind of mad, backwards world do we live in where
| people consider a photo of a naked baby to be CP? Every
| family out there has photos of their children naked as
| babies.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| A litigious one that jumps at any opportunity to take
| offense of there's a chance one can profit from it?
| devwastaken wrote:
| Only in the west can an image of a naked baby be
| intentionally misconstrued as "pornography". It doesn't meet
| any definitions of pornography, the only reason people think
| it's "reasonable" is group think.
| ghaff wrote:
| Only in the "west"? I can think of quite of few countries
| that are not in the west where that would almost certainly
| be considered improper and a number where it would probably
| be outright illegal.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| The point of view is unreasonnable : a child naked is not
| Porn unless the intent is to make it porn. No one would think
| to describe a child naked at the beach "porn", why would it
| be different on an album cover?
| mzs wrote:
| "the teacher said it could be CP"
|
| So the POV paraphrased was: someone could consider it CP,
| I'm not going to argue whether it is or isn't, but it will
| be disruptive and I'm here to teach and the class to learn
| so let's nip this in the bud and get on with my lesson.
|
| I thought that was a very reasonable take on the situation
| which was getting disruptive first period history class.
| much more reasonable than a suspension or the like.
| tedunangst wrote:
| But there was no disruption until the teacher interrupted
| class to make an issue of it?
| mzs wrote:
| Something happened first, but I don't know what. I was
| near the map at the far wall while she and the disruption
| which initially attracted the teacher were near the door.
| It could have been comments about the shirt or just any
| other teenager antics.
| Majestic121 wrote:
| I still don't think it's reasonable. Restricting yourself
| on such banalities feels way too much like "the (prude)
| terrorists have won"
|
| If someone made the same case for a woman wearing a
| regular skirt in class, (I hope) everyone would be up in
| arms, and rightfully so.
| asdff wrote:
| It's school, banning articles of clothing is their bread
| and butter. When I was in school it was war on spaghetti
| straps and yoga pants.
| ghaff wrote:
| So are there no limits to what a high school student can
| have on a Tshirt--realizing any such limit will be
| controversial and probably political to some degree?
|
| (Personally, I had to wear a jacket and tie though, so
| what do I know.)
| mzs wrote:
| I'm probably missing something but from me at two HSs and
| my three kids later in HS clothing connected to drugs,
| alcohol, smoking, profanity, nudity, and sex were
| prohibited.
| b3morales wrote:
| There's in fact a U.S. Supreme Court case, _Tinker v. Des
| Moines_ , about the limits.
|
| The students were wearing black armbands to protest the
| Vietnam War; they prevailed:
|
| > The court observed, "It can hardly be argued that
| either students or teachers shed their constitutional
| rights to freedom of speech or expression at the
| schoolhouse gate."
|
| > The Court held that for school officials to justify
| censoring speech, they "must be able to show that [their]
| action was caused by something more than a mere desire to
| avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always
| accompany an unpopular viewpoint," that the conduct that
| would "materially and substantially interfere with the
| requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation
| of the school."
|
| (From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_
| Independe...)
| jes wrote:
| I have never seen the album cover.
|
| If he was circumcised as an infant - absent a medical diagnosis
| of disease or defect that can only reasonably be treated by
| surgery - then he is a victim of cultural male genital
| mutilation.
|
| As to whether it's child pornography, I can't say, but sadly, I
| can tell you that there are people in the world who get off on
| infant circumcision. To my knowledge, the "Gilgal Society" was
| one such group.
| [deleted]
| b3morales wrote:
| > I wish the courts were ok with a response of
|
| That exists in the concept of "frivolous litigation"
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frivolous_litigation This has
| been used in response to some "sovereign citizen" cases (https:
| //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_citizen_movement#Leg...), and
| it can result in penalties like fines.
|
| There's also "vexatious litigation", for when you're
| effectively trying to use the court system to harass someone.
| habitue wrote:
| I think there are also opportunities to have a case dismissed
| before going into the costly parts of a trial like discovery.
| The judge can dismiss it just based on the merits of the
| suit, where they just assume all the alleged facts will turn
| out to be true.
|
| (I am so not a lawyer, would love if a lawyer could correct
| me)
| mywittyname wrote:
| My understanding is that the bar for this is incredibly high,
| especially vexatious litigation.
| shadilay wrote:
| The ethical concern is consent. The situation would be very
| different if they paid him as an 18 year old to use his baby
| picture but that's not what happened. Using naked children in
| commercial work is always on sketchy ground ethically.
| thanatos519 wrote:
| I wonder if the baby on the right is still into peeing on himself
| or would like to sue Logitech now.
|
| https://www.adforum.com/creative-work/ad/player/23267/baby/l...
| bodge5000 wrote:
| a little from column A, a little from column B
| Loeffelmaenn wrote:
| What the hell is the ad even supposed to mean
| daneel_w wrote:
| How opportunistic. But I suppose one has got to "make a living"
| somehow...
| asdff wrote:
| Honestly, whether you make it or not in this world is sheer
| dumb luck for the most part. More power to the people in the
| neck brace suing the city for a million dollars for the 1 inch
| pot hole that kicked them off their bike. I'd be right there
| too if I saw I was potentially leaving money on the table even
| if the premise was a reach. It's a dog eat dog world out there
| and you gotta look out for your own.
| throw7 wrote:
| He should have sued his parents.
| tromp wrote:
| It took him 30 years to become what's depicted on the cover, an
| attempted cash grab.
| boopboopbadoop wrote:
| Quite ironic. He claims to be an artist, maybe this is a
| performance piece?
| hamburglar wrote:
| I hope so. I have always interpreted the album cover to be a
| statement that greed is innate to us, to the point that you
| could go fishing for babies using dollar bills as bait. It's
| conceivable that he's just underscoring that point now. I
| kinda doubt he'd do so at the expense of his own reputation,
| but it's a nice thought.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| So ironic to think that this baby would be chasing the money.
| Makes the artwork more important
|
| This is clearly bad thinking. He should re-take the same picture
| today , it would sell for much more. Hell, he could take one
| every year
|
| Edit: Whoa! Look at the guy holding child pornography in his own
| hands! https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/world-
| news/2021/08/2...
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Now that would be an NFT worth buying.
| smhenderson wrote:
| He has retaken the picture several times, on anniversaries of
| the album's release. He seemed to think it was cool and opened
| doors for him five years ago but I guess he's changed his mind
| since then.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| not naked tho
| [deleted]
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Edit: Whoa! Look at the guy holding child pornography
|
| I hope he does not use an iPhone
| cyberge99 wrote:
| He could just settle for rights to the cover photo.
|
| Then he could mint it as an NFT and auction it for millions (or
| peanuts depending on the market at the time).
| sydthrowaway wrote:
| I remember the NFT hype from 3 months ago. Is it dead yet?
|
| Also what happened to Chia?
| parineum wrote:
| > Also what happened to Chia?
|
| All I know is that hard drives are still marked up.
| casi18 wrote:
| opensea just reached 70% of ebays volume this week, so no
| doesnt like nfts are going away anytime soon.
| eli wrote:
| Why bother with the rights? He could just auction the concept
| of him on the cover photo. It's all meaningless anyway.
| ziml77 wrote:
| If this case wins on the argument that it's sexual, doesn't that
| mean that everyone who owns a copy of the album possesses child
| porn? At the very least it certainly must mean that his parents
| and the photographer need to be jailed for producing child porn.
| S_A_P wrote:
| Sometimes people land on hard times so they make ill advised
| decisions. Lets be honest here, nobody is going to look at the
| adult and say hey I remember you- you're the naked baby on the
| nirvana album. He is the one who did that, by recreating the
| photo multiple times and doing interviews.
|
| If we want to talk about gross album covers, I seem to remember a
| Scorpions album from the 70s that I don't ever care to see again
| or even look up...
| Zelphyr wrote:
| There's a version of the Martin Denny _Romantica_ album cover
| where he 's snuggling a woman with her bare breast exposed. Not
| gross but, very odd. The 60's were a strange time, man.
| umvi wrote:
| One of America's problems: people seeing
| companies/organizations/individuals with fat stacks and trying to
| (ab)use the courts to get an easy piece of the pie for
| themselves. Liability lawsuits ("my kid slipped and fell on your
| playground, give me a million dollars"), patent trolling, and
| cash grabs like this just make me shake my head.
| mirekrusin wrote:
| They should give him this dollar bill (should be worth more now).
| danschumann wrote:
| It seems like a shameful lawsuit, but it's human nature to do
| such things. He still is a baby and still is on the hook. Life is
| hard enough as it is without seeing people you know profit
| insanely.
| VelkaMorava wrote:
| Funny how the incriminating album cover is a prophetic message in
| itself; the person portrayed on it chasing after money.
|
| On one hand I get it, he didn't consent and what not. But the guy
| is 30. Why didn't he sue 10 years ago? I have feeling it's
| because he's trying to ride the wave of political correctness and
| cancel culture...
| azinman2 wrote:
| That's because it's all a giant reach, and in reality, is
| probably the most famous thing he's ever done, and thus he
| can't get past it.
| babyshake wrote:
| It's difficult to imagine being ashamed of being the baby on that
| album cover. That seems like one of the ultimate fun facts to
| share about yourself.
| kabdib wrote:
| He's had years to do this, and didn't. I suspect it'll get
| dismissed for laches.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I doubt this has any legal standing, but I think the record
| company should have "did the right thing" and gave him some
| royalties. At least once it was clear that this was going to be
| one of the biggest albums of all time.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Legal standing:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_(law)
|
| "In law, standing or locus standing is a condition that a party
| seeking a legal remedy must show they have by demonstrating to
| the court sufficient connection to and harm from the law or
| action challenged to support that party's participation in the
| case."
|
| The guy is on the picture. He has probably been butt of jokes
| his entire life. He has legal standing.
|
| Legal standing has nothing to do with whether he is or isn't
| right. It just allows him to present the case.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Oh, I guess I meant that I don't think he has a chance of
| winning. Thank you for pointing that out, I didn't realize
| standing was an actual legal term.
| EMM_386 wrote:
| This seems to be a cash grab.
|
| Note this same guy re-created the album cover only 5 years ago.
| He didn't seem to have much of a problem at that time.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-37478523
| hereforphone wrote:
| Did he not have the balls(!) to do it naked as in the original?
| detaro wrote:
| that's addressed in the article.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Sorry not sorry, that's a really dumb question to ask.
| spoonjim wrote:
| The motivations don't matter. It was wrong for Nirvana to do
| and a big award will make others less likely to do this in the
| future.
| rockbruno wrote:
| You can't say the motivation doesn't matter when the person
| is clearly ill-intended. He claims he "has suffered and will
| continue to suffer lifelong damages". Nobody knew who this
| person was before he started complaining about it, how could
| he "suffer damage" from it? There's no case here and any
| defense lawyer would have a field day with this.
| vmception wrote:
| It doesnt matter. You can be exuberantly happy about a
| photo and still have power over it if that power was not
| signed away.
|
| The power in this case is damages which can be collected
| due to the ongoing commercial use.
| preinheimer wrote:
| I absolutely think it's possible to suffer as the result of
| a photo, even if it's not clear you're the subject.
| DSMan195276 wrote:
| > Nobody knew who this person was before he started
| complaining about it, how could he "suffer damage" from it?
|
| Ehh, that seems like pretty shaky logic. I think it's
| pretty safe to say that lots of people would be bothered by
| naked pictures of themselves being posted publicly for all
| to see, even if they can't be identified by the pictures.
|
| That's not to say he's going to win, but I think you're
| simplifying things a bit too much.
| rockbruno wrote:
| Sure, but you ignored the part where he's ill-intended.
| This is obviously not bothering him given that he
| willingly recreated the picture in the past to milk money
| out of it.
| DSMan195276 wrote:
| How is the part I quoted related to whether he's ill-
| intended or not? Weren't you saying that before anybody
| knew it was him it was impossible for him to "suffer
| damage" from it? That's the part I disagree with.
| spoonjim wrote:
| My reason for not caring about his motivations is that a
| big reason for torts to exist is to discourage bad behavior
| from others. If you look at the actions of a major American
| corporation a huge fraction of them are "so we don't get
| sued." The next time a record label thinks about using an
| exploitative image of a baby for their advertising, I want
| them to think "oof, remember when we did that and had to
| pay out $100 million?" Not "oh yeah, remember that was one
| of the iconic album covers of all time."
|
| Elden himself hardly matters to this... a judge ordering
| the label to set $100 million on fire (or make a non-
| deductible charitable donation) would have the same effect.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The record label secured the rights to use the photo from
| people legally able to grant those rights.
|
| I don't see a legal quandary at all and, unless you think
| all minors' likenesses should not be able to appear in
| commercial material, I don't see a moral or ethical
| quandary. Plaintiff's destination for their complaint is
| with their parents, IMO.
|
| Same as if adult Mikey objected to being associated with
| Life cereal or adult Macauley Culkin objected to being in
| Home Alone.
|
| Edit to add: > Elden says his parents never signed a
| release authorising the use of his image on the album.
|
| Iff that claim is true (which should be a relatively
| straightforward finding of fact) _and_ that fact means
| that the label didn't have the rights to use the likeness
| [the claim doesn't rely on a technicality of the word
| "release", but where the label has a license to use],
| then I'd say he's got a case.
| spoonjim wrote:
| I see this photo as somewhere in the uncomfortable gray
| area between Macauley Culkin and child pornography.
| That's why I don't believe the same rules should apply.
| vmception wrote:
| You had good arguments, this is the weakest one of them.
| The child pornography aspect of this _civil_ suit is just
| to settle it faster, in order to add gravity to the
| situation, but it would be counterproductive in
| actuality.
|
| Although likeness is regulated only at the state level,
| and is the only aspect of this lawsuit, copyright is
| regulated at the federal level and is the basis for the
| commercial licenses to exist at all - if this actually
| was child pornography which requires a category of
| something considered obscenity, it would be ineligible
| for copyright which would mean the existing licensors
| would have no reason to pay for the license at all, and
| there would be no value to give for the likeness
| settlement.
|
| The rest is your feelings and that is not relevant here.
| burnished wrote:
| What? In what way is this possibly pornographic? It is
| really uncomfortable to me that you're just going to
| casually throw that out there as an axis for this to be
| measured on.
| spoonjim wrote:
| It is a naked picture of a baby clearly used to provoke
| and advertise. I'm OK with naked baby photos being taken
| and kept by parents but I don't think it's OK to use a
| child's naked photo as one of the iconic commercial
| photos of a generation. I do not think it _is_ child
| pornography but I think that it is a misuse of a baby 's
| naked photo in a way that a parent should not be able to
| consent to on behalf of the child.
| burnished wrote:
| I feel like part of the problem is that your position is
| changing based on outcome, right, like it became a
| problem after the fact when it became a commercial hit.
| spoonjim wrote:
| I don't think naked baby photos should be commercially
| licensable at all.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Not even for biology/medical textbooks or forensics
| training content or other educational purposes from
| commercial publishers?
|
| I don't see naked as equaling sexualized and I don't see
| the Nirvana cover as the latter either, but I definitely
| can't see a total ban on pictures in commercially-sold
| material being workable.
| burnished wrote:
| If your position is something along the lines of, babies
| cant consent, young children cant consent, why dont we
| just live in a world where we dont include them in media
| so we dont have people growing up having to figure out
| how they feel about how they were presented to the
| world... sure, that would be a pretty consistent world
| view.
|
| If its just that you think a naked baby is pornographic
| then I guess its an entirely different conversation. Its
| not really clear what motivates your statement here
| though.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| What is your personal threshold for "naked"? Completely
| naked? Diapers? Nipples showing?
| vmception wrote:
| > I don't see a legal quandary at all and, unless you
| think all minors' likenesses should not be able to appear
| in commercial material, I don't see a moral or ethical
| quandary. Plaintiff's destination for their complaint is
| with their parents, IMO.
|
| Its not a moral quandary it is a contractual quandary
| which the lawsuit accurately details.
|
| If his parents didn't sign the likeness then anyone using
| the image has a liability issue. It doesnt matter if its
| the photographer, Nirvana, the record label, etc
|
| Yes, your edit covers it and I would also say he has a
| case. Spoonjim has been correct the whole time. Somehow
| that opinion isnt seen as popular right now but the
| accuracy is not in question.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| And:
|
| > It's not the first time Spencer has been asked to recreate
| the image - he has posed three times before for the album's
| 10th, 17th and 20th anniversaries.
|
| > "I said to the photographer, 'Let's do it naked.' But he
| thought that would be weird, so I wore my swim shorts," Spencer
| told the New York Post.
| dbingham wrote:
| If you follow the link through to the New York Post interview
| that BBC article is based on, and then watch the actual
| interview, you can see he's pretty fucking conflicted about it
| even then. The recreations could easily be him trying to take
| ownership of something he feels conflicted about as a way of
| exerting control over something he had no ability to consent
| to.
|
| Quotes from that interview:
|
| Q: "What's it like knowing all these people have seen you
| naked?"
|
| A: "What's it like knowing all these people have seen my baby
| penis? When I was a baby? Well, I'm not really a baby anymore,
| so I have to think it's not me or something. But it's a trip
| that a lot of people have seen my baby penis, as a baby. I went
| to a baseball game at the Dodgers, and I had a moment where I
| was looking out and thinking 'All these people have seen my
| baby penis, when I was a baby'. It's pretty... pretty crazy.
| It'd be nice to have a quarter for all the people who have seen
| my baby penis. But, you know, there's all kinds of puns you
| could throw on that. But... you know... maybe it doesn't matter
| though, it's cool to be a part of that recipe for success.
| Makes you think you could do it again. That might not happy,
| but it's a pretty big thing, to be a part of, low key, but it
| definitely trips you out. But then I try not to think about it,
| because it's not that big of a deal, there's a lot of things
| going on that are more important."
|
| I mean, it goes on, but to me that reads as someone struggling
| to come to terms with something that happened to them when they
| couldn't consent. Most people would not be okay with having
| their naked image broadcast to the world before they could
| consent. And then add in the idea that others made a ton of
| money off content that used their naked image, and they saw
| almost none of that... it's understandable.
| Grustaf wrote:
| What is it with Americans and the naked body? Babies are
| supposed to be naked, it's not embarrassing.
|
| We put giant photos of ourselves as babies, often naked, on
| sticks and wave around when we graduate. I have never heard
| anyone even hint at that being an issue.
|
| And for the record, breastfeeding is the most natural thing
| in the world.
| t8e56vd4ih wrote:
| > The recreations could easily be him trying to take
| ownership of something he feels conflicted about as a way of
| exerting control over something he had no ability to consent
| to.
|
| beautiful
| dougmwne wrote:
| Yeah, just imagine. You are born into this mysterious
| existence full of beauty, suffering, sadness and joy. You
| live on a mote in an infinite universe, sharing it with
| billions upon billions of self aware entities just like
| yourself, and ever since the very first moment you had
| awareness, each and every one of them had seen your little
| tiny baby penis.
|
| Poor bastard.
| namdnay wrote:
| So I kind of agree, except:
|
| 1) nobody would ever have known it was him if he hadn't been
| trying to milk it for celebrity
|
| 2) He's aiming at the record label because they've got the
| big bucks, but it's his parents who sold him out when they
| accepted 200$ for a photoshoot
| dbingham wrote:
| 1) People don't have to know its him for it to kind of fuck
| him up. Honestly, I dunno know if it would mess me up or
| not to be in his position, but I could definitely imagine
| it messing some folks up to know that basically everyone
| had seen you naked and you had no ability to consent.
|
| Also, the way I read the articles, I don't believe he
| reached out for those recreations - the media reached out
| to him.
|
| 2) The record label are the ones who ultimately profited
| off the image.
|
| Edit: Also, it's not like it was hidden that it was him on
| the album cover. Anyone who wanted to know who the baby was
| could easily find out it was him. It's in the wikipedia,
| and I imagine it was probably credited in the Album
| credits: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevermind#Artwork
|
| That's probably how the media tracked him down for
| recreations.
| djrogers wrote:
| > 2) The record label are the ones who ultimately
| profited off the image.
|
| Did they? Seriously - would this album have sold a single
| fewer copies if the cover had been a picture of a duck,
| or a floating Pom-Pom, or any of a million other things?
|
| To claim they profited from the photo, you'd have to
| prove that people bought one of the most popular albums
| of all time because this dudes baby parts were on the
| cover.
| jollybean wrote:
| "up to know that basically everyone had seen you naked
| and you had no ability to consent."
|
| He was a _baby_.
|
| What kind of splitting hair intellectual rhetoric are we
| people getting into?
|
| All of my uncles, aunts, neighbours, neighbours at the
| cottage, babysitters, people at the park saw me to some
| extent 'naked' at the park. Little girls considerably
| more often since they go topless.
|
| It's the most normal thing on the planet and it's been
| that way for thousands of years for everyone.
|
| I'm hoping is just an odd HN style discussion and not
| some kind of weird new social normalization that's
| happened very quickly, in one generation as an artifact
| of ultra urbane helicopter parenting.
|
| This is not a debate: his parents will have, or not,
| consented to him being in a bit of commercial artwork.
| His being naked as baby is irrelevant. That's it.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Sadly, I think it's a rapid change in at least urbanized
| predominantly white societies.
|
| This is why recently I've been loving watching old videos
| of people living their everyday lives before technology
| oversocialized us.
|
| Here's a recent one that I happened to find because I was
| researching the Boston accent:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omVFxtbZoyw
|
| These days you'd think all these people were just actors
| in some 80's movie, but they were real people all walking
| up to each other and interacting organically. Nobody is
| staring down at phones, everyone is socially confident,
| kids are out playing, adults show affection towards the
| children, and so on. Some may disapprove of the lifestyle
| of these urban Boston Italians or certain things they
| say, but it's one reflection of a different time that
| really wasn't that long ago. This was before mainstream
| media scared the shit out of people and convinced them
| that the world is too dangerous, before people
| overexposed themselves on social media, before video
| games addicted children, before adults spent more time
| with their devices than with their families. Things
| weren't perfect in the old days by any means, but there
| were some good things about humanity that we've gradually
| suppressed in ourselves which we've been losing in a
| short period of time.
|
| Like you, I grew up with a big family where the little
| ones were sometimes seen naked whether it was when we
| were running around in the dirt or taking baths together.
| By a certain age, our parents knew when to start having
| us to always wear clothes and bathe by ourselves. But
| there's what I would consider a precious window of
| innocence in young childhood where kids can exist and be
| themselves, clothed or not, free of the knowledge of
| sexuality. My sibling and cousins all were naked at one
| point or another as young kids and nobody feels scarred
| or exploited because our elders saw us naked in some
| vague memory.
| dbingham wrote:
| The issue is not his nudity so much as the commercial use
| of his image.
| jollybean wrote:
| Maybe this is perhaps one of the greatest artistic
| ironies ever?
|
| The 'barely born baby, into the world chasing the dollar
| on the devil's rod' ... has come to life in the 'baby
| adult demanding money for something he's probably not
| owed, making hyperbolic claims of 'child porn'.
|
| I think if he were not naked, he would have a much harder
| time with the 'sex crime' hyperbole.
|
| Nudity isn't porn.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Did you even read the lede?
|
| > Spencer Elden, the man who was photographed as a baby
| on the album cover for Nirvana's Nevermind, is suing the
| band alleging sexual exploitation.
|
| The article goes on:
|
| > He also alleges the nude image constitutes child
| pornography.
|
| > However, Elden's lawyer, Robert Y. Lewis, argues that
| the inclusion of the dollar bill (which was superimposed
| after the photograph was taken) makes the minor seem
| "like a sex worker".
|
| It amazes me just how many HN users just say stuff
| without reading anything. The person being replied to
| also doesn't deserve the downvotes; it's an entirely
| valid point that the general population is likely to
| agree with. (not saying you downvoted in particular... I
| just find it baffling.)
| indrax wrote:
| We haven't had photography for thousands of years, and
| it's reasonable to think that we are still adjusting to
| the implications.
|
| It's quite normal for people to be embarrassed when their
| parents show baby pictures, especially if it involves
| nudity. It's transplanting the childish innocence onto
| the person's social present.
|
| His parent's consent does not negate the harm done,
| possibly the opposite.
| Nicksil wrote:
| >2) The record label are the ones who ultimately profited
| off the image.
|
| Were the parents (or whomever consented) not compensated?
| dbingham wrote:
| A pittance yes. But the record label were the ones who
| accepted their consent for a baby who ultimately couldn't
| consent - and the record label were the ones who then
| distributed the image and made a ton of money off of it.
|
| Just because the parents made a morally questionable
| choice to consent on behalf of their child doesn't
| absolve the record label of also making the morally
| questionable choice of distributing and profiting from
| the naked image of a child who couldn't consent for
| themselves.
| b3morales wrote:
| > profiting from the naked image of a child who couldn't
| consent for themselves.
|
| As an honest question, I'm curious whether the "naked"
| part makes this worse in your opinion. I, personally,
| don't feel any shame about my body at that age -- too
| young for me to even remember -- being seen. (As opposed
| to a nude photo of me _now_ being distributed without my
| approval.)
|
| To me it seems like the nakedness is irrelevant -- if it
| was a violation of consent to use his baby image, then
| clothes don't negate the violation.
| dbingham wrote:
| For myself, no. I've played naked ultimate frisbee points
| before and there are undoubtedly pictures of me naked
| doing ridiculous shit as part of college frisbee team
| hazing floating around the internet (or one of my former
| teammates hardrives) somewhere - and I honestly don't
| care.
|
| Although, that said, those pictures have never surfaced.
| My feelings about them might change if a coworker pulled
| them up unexpectedly one day and started giving me shit
| for it.
|
| Whatever our individual feelings about nudity - or how it
| should be perceived in society (and I agree, it should
| not be shameful or automatically sexualized the way it
| is) our society does view nudity a certain way. And
| people are allowed to feel about they feel about that. If
| it makes it worse for him, and it sure seems to, then
| that's something we have to respect. Even if we wish it
| were otherwise.
|
| My main thing is voluntary consent. He couldn't. He
| should have been able to. I don't think parents should
| have the right to effectively sell their kids before they
| can consent. If that means we don't can't use kids
| younger than a certain age in modeling and marketing, so
| be it.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| There are billions of photos of infants and young
| children used in instruction manuals, text books,
| advertising, and as stock photos. What's more, these are
| very often necessarily taken in various states of
| undress, for example the diapered infants on the box of
| the kiddie pool in my backyard.
|
| Another example: the instructions for my pediatric
| otoscope used photos of an infant, showing proper
| placement. This is a commercial use.
|
| Do you propose that all of these photos should be made
| illegal?
|
| EDIT: And what about movies? Should we ban infants and
| small children from film as well?
| namdnay wrote:
| but no child can consent to anything, so unless we just
| put a blanket ban on media depictions of under-18s, we
| have to rely on the consent of the parents
|
| i really don't see what the moral question is. they
| wanted a photo of a newborn swimming, they bought the
| photo of a newborn swimming
| dbingham wrote:
| I think it'd be reasonable to reduce the age of consent
| to kids who actually can consent. 18 is pretty arbitrary.
| I think it's pretty clear a 14 year old can consent to
| many things. A 10 or 8 year old can probably also offer
| partial consent.
|
| But a newborn can't. A 2 year old can't. A four year old
| can't. The line of when a kid can understand what they're
| consenting to gets blurry from there. And we probably
| just need much more nuanced consent laws rather than a
| blanket "You can legally consent at 18, and your parents
| can consent for you before that."
|
| There are certain things we need to let parents consent
| to - like medical care. But we don't need to let parents
| consent to the use of their kids image in media. We don't
| need to allow parents to sell their kids.
|
| And I don't think "Well, they can't consent and if we
| give them consent we can't do this class of thing" is a
| good enough reason to deny them the ability to consent.
|
| So we can't use naked pictures of kids who can't consent
| in media, or pictures at all. So what? Voluntary consent
| is important. If respecting voluntary consent means there
| are things we can't do - then there are things we can't
| do.
| _jal wrote:
| > or pictures at all. So what? Voluntary consent is
| important
|
| How far are you willing to push that?
|
| Should I need to destroy photos that accidentally capture
| an infant in public?
|
| Should children not get vaccine shots until they can
| meaningfully consent?
| dbingham wrote:
| My comment answered the vaccine shots (medical
| procedure). The one below mine answered the "destroy
| photos" - commercial use is different from incidental,
| personal, or news reporting in current consent laws. And
| that seems like the right line to draw.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| So you're proposing an entirely new legal regime around
| the interminably gray area of commercial activity, and
| it's intersection with the equally gray area of consent
| by children, which is currently centered on age,
| typically late teens for most uses?
|
| Relief in the courts would require a completely new body
| of common law. In the mean time, legislation would be the
| only way to provide compensation to victims of un-
| consented childhood photography.
|
| What specific ideas do you have for laws that could start
| to provide this relief?
| ghaff wrote:
| >or pictures at all
|
| To be clear, consent relates to things like, well, album
| covers and other types of commercial photography such as
| marketing and advertising. There's no consent needed for
| editorial (e.g. news) photography.
|
| This also wouldn't even be a discussion if this were some
| obscure art photography. It just happens to be on an
| iconic album cover.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Movies and TV shows would be pretty weird if you couldn't
| ever show children. So would school yearbooks, typically
| printed by a for-profit company.
| shkkmo wrote:
| The history of psychological effects on child actors and
| children of "blogger moms" indicates there should be
| atleast some ethical concerns.
|
| Just because parents consent doesn't mean that parents
| are looking out for their children or understand what the
| effects of fame as a young child will be.
|
| I don't have cut and dried answers here, but I don't
| think you can pretend that there aren't ethical concerns
| with media protrayal of young children that need atleast
| some consideration.
|
| Edit: Personally, I think that if a photograph of a naked
| baby was important to this piece of art, the ethical
| solution would have been to keep the baby's identity
| anonymous (at least until he was 18). That would have
| done a lot to balance the ethics here, especially as the
| identity of the baby shouldn't matter.
| delaynomore wrote:
| > The record label are the ones who ultimately profited
| off the image
|
| The record label profited off the music, not the image.
| The image on its own means nothing without the music.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Nobody would know it's him even now. I just saw a
| photograph of him and read his name but I am confident I
| would never recognize him or the name after a day or two.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Let me use a straw man to make a point: what if instead
| of that photo shoot and it becoming the cover of an album
| he was actually sexually exploited as a baby and a photo
| of that horrific act became widely seen. Do you think it
| would still fuck him up to know that it happened to him
| as a child even if you or I couldn't recognize him? That
| is to say, I don't think his issue is so much that people
| recognize him as the baby on the album cover but the fact
| that he recognizes himself as that baby.
| tshaddox wrote:
| Yes, if the situation was completely different, then I
| would absolutely have completely different thoughts about
| the situation. I don't even have a problem with a civil
| lawsuit making a case that there is emotional distress.
| But the particular argument being made here is that the
| album cover constitutes child pornography and that the
| dollar bill portrays the infant as a sex worker. I'm not
| a lawyer, but that doesn't seem remotely plausible to me.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Right. I am with you on your point there. My point is not
| necessarily that his lawsuit does or does not have merit.
| It is simply that just because nobody knows who he is
| until he tells them doesn't mean that damage to him
| wasn't done. Ultimately I think his parents fucked up by
| doing this and not thinking through how it would affect
| their son.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > 1) nobody would ever have known it was him if he hadn't
| been trying to milk it for celebrity
|
| It was a thing that happened to him as a baby, and it
| sounds like he's had conflicted feelings about it. It
| doesn't seem reasonable to blame him for not acting in just
| the perfect way for his whole life to minimize the effects
| on him.
|
| > 2) He's aiming at the record label because they've got
| the big bucks, but it's his parents who sold him out when
| they accepted 200$ for a photoshoot
|
| It's not an either or thing. It's totally legitimate to
| blame all the parties involved.
|
| However, of all the parties involved, his parents were
| likely the _most ignorant_ of what this photo would become.
| From the OP:
|
| > In 2008, Spencer's father Rick recounted the photo shoot
| to US radio network NPR, saying he had been offered $200 to
| take part by Weddle [the photographer], who was a family
| friend.
|
| > "We just had a big party at the pool, and no one had any
| idea what was going on!"
|
| > The family quickly forgot the photoshoot until, three
| months later, they saw the Nevermind album cover blown up
| on the wall of Tower Records in Los Angeles.
|
| I kind of hesitate to use terms like this, but the intent
| of your comment seems to be to deflect blame towards the
| least responsible parties, which seems like a kind of
| victim blaming.
| ravenstine wrote:
| > I mean, it goes on, but to me that reads as someone
| struggling to come to terms with something that happened to
| them when they couldn't consent. Most people would not be
| okay with having their naked image broadcast to the world
| before they could consent. And then add in the idea that
| others made a ton of money off content that used their naked
| image, and they saw almost none of that... it's
| understandable.
|
| As soon as the child pornography argument falls flat on its
| face (assuming the prosecution is actually that boneheaded),
| the defense may argue that the magnitude of possible harm is
| very different considering how the body, mind, and memory of
| an infant hardly recognizable to their adult counterpart and
| that there is no sort of humiliating aspect to the album art
| that would cause the public to view the adult Elden in any
| negative way.
|
| It's not as if Elden doesn't have _some_ point to make. It 's
| bad that he hasn't been compensated for being pictures on one
| of the most iconic albums ever made. But unless there's
| something revealed in trial that I don't know, it doesn't
| appear that the record company or the band did anything
| wrong. It all hinges on whether there was sexual child
| exploitation, and although some people on HN seem to believe
| that the image of the naked body of an infant is inherently
| sexual in nature (which is creepy to me, but what do I know),
| I highly doubt that a judge, jury, or regular people are
| going to buy that argument.
| alephu5 wrote:
| The image has nothing to do with the success of the album,
| it's the music. They could have put a deflated football on
| the cover and it would have still been iconic.
|
| Given the easy availability of newborn babies, I think $200
| is fair.
| vmception wrote:
| You really think thats a factor huh.
|
| If his parents didn't sign a release then there is a claim. It
| doesn't matter if the subject felt good about it for some time.
| Actually, in your mind, how _is_ that related? Its hard for me
| to relate so can you elaborate?
|
| The additional claim of it being child pornography is not
| strong and is to get them to settle faster. Although he says
| there was an agreement about covering the genitals that seems
| broken, if there is no document that will be the only tricky
| part about the case (just in general contractual stipulations),
| but does also bolster the settlement claim.
| gfo wrote:
| Yikes. Despite loving this album, I really thought there might
| be merit to this lawsuit.
|
| And then... this article. Smells like a money grab to me as
| well.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > Smells like a money grab
|
| I see what you did, there.
| dancemethis wrote:
| Well, must still be humiliating to be part of the thing that
| downright killed music.
| mastrsushi wrote:
| This man can never set foot in a vintage record shop again!
| eplanit wrote:
| The fact that he re-created the image on his own several times as
| a teenager and as an adult, along with his expression of seeing
| it all as a benefit: "It's always been a positive thing and
| opened doors for me... when he heard I was the Nirvana baby, he
| thought that was really cool." should get the suit properly
| tossed out. I say "should"...
| balls187 wrote:
| In my opinion, this is one of the downfalls of our (US) legal
| system. That it expects too much of individuals at a young age.
|
| It's very possible this is a cash grab. But it's also very
| possible the plantiff has come to believe what happened in the
| past was wrong, and truly wants recompense.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| I'm surprised that so many comments here are criticizing the
| plaintiff. It seems obvious to me that (a) nude images of someone
| should only be distributed with that person's consent, and that
| (b) 4-year-olds are not old enough to consent to such things.
| Whether he has a legal case is another issue, but it seems clear
| to me that _morally_ Elder is in the right.
| balls187 wrote:
| I think more nuanced question--at what point should consent
| transfer from the legal guardian to the individual?
|
| In the age of the internet, should consent given on behalf of a
| minor be in perpetuity?
| jasonhansel wrote:
| I don't think that consent by a legal guardian is ever
| sufficient in this sort of case. Distributing nude images of
| a person should require the consent of that person, not
| (just) that of a legal guardian.
| judge2020 wrote:
| A non-sexual naked picture of a baby isn't much different
| from a clothed picture of a baby in terms of societal
| acceptance, which is why nobody is criticising Nirvana/UMG.
| balls187 wrote:
| IANAL, but isn't that why the designation of legal guardian
| exists--to allow someone else to make decisions on behalf
| of someone else?
|
| I think the point you are trying to make is that a legal
| guardian cannot offer consent that is unlawful, as such
| consent would not be valid.
|
| Perhaps that is the angle the plantiff is going for--that
| any oral consent given is unlawful and voided because the
| image was used in a pornographic way.
| johnp271 wrote:
| The individual in the photo is 4 'months' old. Arguably 4 month
| old babies being nude should not be a big deal. I suspect in
| much of the world this is the normal attire for a 4 month old.
| I guess videos of babies being born (see for instance "Call the
| Midwife" on BBC) should now require a signed consent from the
| embryo first?
| lmilcin wrote:
| > The legal case also alleges that Nirvana had promised to cover
| Elden's genitals with a sticker, but the agreement was not
| upheld.
|
| But erlier:
|
| > Elden says his parents never signed a release authorising the
| use of his image on the album.
|
| Umm... get your story straight?
| balls187 wrote:
| Not really.
|
| If the agreement was verbal, there would not be a signed
| release.
| lmilcin wrote:
| That's my point. There either was a legal contract or not.
| Verbal contract is still legal contract, but paper is
| preferred because it is easier to prove it after the fact.
|
| If there wasn't some kind of contract the second part
| (promising to use tape on genitals) would seem to contradict
| it.
| smitty1e wrote:
| To paraphrase Clausewitz, "Lawfare is the continuation of
| advertising by other means."
| redis_mlc wrote:
| It might be a John Fonte quote. Great article on the concept:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/lawfare.html
|
| Dr. VDH often references similar concepts, especially by US
| citizens who call themselves globalists. As Noam Chomsky said
| recently, "I love my family. How can I love a country?"
|
| Note that the CCP uses lawfare against the US. (Even Biden's
| White House admin is actually a CCP lobbyist. The CCP has
| burrowed that deep.)
| Torwald wrote:
| Witz means wit or joke. Klausel is the technical term in law
| for clause. Sounds like a good fit for your comment.
| fourseventy wrote:
| Smells like money grab
| Bellamy wrote:
| I hope they guy gets nothing and has to pay everyone's court
| costs.
|
| I have never seen such a clear cash in attempt. I hope the judge
| laugh's this guy out of the court room if it goes that far.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| If he were smart he could have justed minted an NFT of the cover
| and sold it to whatever morons are still buying those.
| fastball wrote:
| An amazing case of the Streisand Effect.
|
| > Elden alleges his "true identity and legal name are forever
| tied to the commercial sexual exploitation he experienced as a
| minor which has been distributed and sold worldwide from the time
| he was a baby to the present day".
|
| Absolutely had no idea what the legal name of the _naked baby_ on
| the cover of Nevermind was. But now I do!
| badwolf wrote:
| I knew his name a few years ago when he "recreated" the pic for
| an anniversary. And promptly forgot his name until today.
|
| This just seems like a cash grab (by him, or more likely some
| lawyer, idk.)
| azinman2 wrote:
| If it really was so traumatic he wouldn't be recreating the
| cover.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| That doesn't necessarily follow. It's really difficult to
| predict what people will do in the wake of trauma. The
| adult photoshoot could be an attempt to take ownership of
| it in some way. Whether you see their behavior as rational
| or not, you can't assess their mental state on that
| information alone.
| frankbreetz wrote:
| Claiming everything is child pornography is damaging to stopping
| actual child pornography. It may not be as widespread, but this
| is just as just as damaging as QAnon's "Save the Children"
| "movement"[0].
|
| If he got paid 200$ back in the day, and thinks he deserves more
| money, that is fairly simple case to make and most people would
| agree.
|
| He is not helping his case by shouting wolf. How would you feel
| about this article if you or one of your children were an actual
| sexual assault victim?
|
| [0]
| https://www.deseret.com/indepth/2020/10/17/21452574/qanon-q-...
| traveler01 wrote:
| That's the same as a designer charging 200 bucks for a logo and
| then when the company becomes a multi national comes back
| asking for more. You agreed (in his case, his parents agreed)
| with the said price. Also naked baby and consider it's child
| pornography it's quite a big stretch. People are so sick.
| xur17 wrote:
| > That's the same as a designer charging 200 bucks for a logo
| and then when the company becomes a multi national comes back
| asking for more. You agreed (in his case, his parents agreed)
| with the said price.
|
| I'll agree it's similar, but the fact that his parents made
| the decision for him does make it different.
| frereubu wrote:
| Can't help but think of the lyrics to Frances Farmer Will Have
| Her Revenge on Seattle: It's so relieving to know
| that you're leaving As soon as you get paid It's so
| relaxing to hear that you're asking Whenever you get your
| way It's so soothing to know that you'll sue me
| Starting to sound the same
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Looks like he never grew up.
| carl_dr wrote:
| I'm late to this post, but I've read through it and can't see
| this addressed, so here is a genuine question.
|
| What is the law in the US regarding photos captured either in
| public or on private property?
|
| So I invite my friends around, one couple have a young son,
| another has a camera. The latter takes a picture of the former
| swimming in my pool.
|
| Later, the latter sells the photo he took to a record company who
| put it on then cover of what would be one of the most critically
| acclaimed albums of the decade.
|
| Is the law in the US that the photographer needs to get a release
| for any person in the photo? I don't think that's the case here
| in the UK, but I am willing to be corrected.
|
| Here, I think if I take a photo anywhere where I am permitted, I
| own the copyright to the picture and can do anything I like with
| it. (I understand there are some exceptions, usually involving
| trademark rather than copyright?)
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I've been thinking about this image recently thanks to the cover
| image of The "Weird Al"-phabet podcast[0] which was a parody of
| the cover of Weird Al Yankovic's 1992 album Off the Deep End[1],
| which in turn was a parody of the Nevermind cover art. Weird Al's
| work has often stood on the shoulders of giants, but I appreciate
| the way he adds something significant to it (almost) every time.
|
| [0] https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weird-al-
| phabet/id...
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Off_the_Deep_End#/media/File:W...
| codingdave wrote:
| IANAL of course, but if they had no authorization to use the
| photo, that sounds like a plausible claim. The CP charges do not
| sound plausible.
|
| But that is how our legal system works - you don't ask for what
| you really believe is fair, you throw everything at the wall to
| see what sticks. I suspect that the CP claim is just for
| negotiation, to get a settlement on the more reasonable claim.
| stef25 wrote:
| This article from 2015 isn't going to do him much good
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jan/16/thats-m...
|
| "It is a weird thing to get my head around, being part of such a
| culturally iconic image. But it's always been a positive thing
| and opened doors for me. I'm 23 now and an artist, and this story
| gave me an opportunity to work with Shepard Fairey for five
| years, which was an awesome experience."
|
| "It helps with girls, too"
|
| "I might have one of the most famous penises in the music
| industry, but no one would ever know that to look at me. Sooner
| or later, I want to create a print of a real-deal re-enactment
| shot, completely naked. Why not? I think it would be fun."
| cafard wrote:
| If it's any comfort to Mr. Elden, I have never seen the album
| cover.
| tenfourwookie wrote:
| The tables will turn on this one. It's not just frivolous, it's
| damagingly so. _World famous album and band beloved by all
| tarnished by greed and frivolity._ Dude will be countersued into
| the ground.
|
| P.S. I once posted a naked baby pic of me on a dating site and it
| almost got me in a lot of trouble.
| foxfluff wrote:
| What kind of trouble did it almost get you in?
| woliveirajr wrote:
| Streisand effect [0] in action, twice.
|
| First, now he'll be even more known.
|
| Second, the vast majority that didn't think about "sex worker"
| will begin to associate such idea.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
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