{"id":1161215,"date":"2021-08-26T18:51:28","date_gmt":"2021-08-26T15:51:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1161215"},"modified":"2021-08-26T18:51:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-26T15:51:28","slug":"a-brief-history-of-musicians-being-sued-by-their-album-cover-subjects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1161215","title":{"rendered":"A Brief History of Musicians Being Sued by Their Album Cover Subjects"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Brief History of Musicians Being Sued by Their Album Cover Subjects<\/h1>\n
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From the famous faces of Some Girls<\/em> to the naked baby on Nevermind<\/em>, cover-art infamy isn\u2019t always appreciated.<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Marc Hogan<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Graphic by Derek Abella<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The baby on the cover of Nirvana\u2019s 1991 classic Nevermind<\/em> isn\u2019t as alone as he might appear. Now 30 years old, Spencer Elden made headlines around the world this week when he sued Nirvana\u2019s surviving members and the estate of Kurt Cobain, claiming the famous image violated federal child pornography statutes. (Elden\u2019s lawyer has claimed that his parents never signed off on how the photo, which they sold for $200, would be used.) Clearly, the horrific nature of the allegations, as well as the particulars of the image and Nevermind<\/em>\u2019s runaway success, set them apart. But for almost as long as albums have captured the popular imagination, their cover subjects have sometimes recoiled from their reflected notoriety.<\/p>\n

Disputes between musicians and photographers, who typically own the copyright to an image, are fairly common. Legal actions over design elements, from Andy Warhol\u2019s Velvet Underground banana all the way down to Cher or Justin Bieber\u2019s font selections, aren\u2019t unheard of, either. But that\u2019s business. For models or entertainers, appearing in cover art can be business, too: The Beatles reputedly asked for written permission from all the living people portrayed in the iconic photo from 1967\u2019s Sgt. Pepper\u2019s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/em> (though at least one of them, \u201950s rock\u2019n\u2019roll singer Dion, has claimed he doesn\u2019t remember such a request). And album art can end up costing a lot more than you might think: One family brought a $2 million lawsuit against Van Halen, who allegedly printed their home phone number in the liner notes to 1991\u2019s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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\"Placebos<\/span><\/div>\n
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Placebo\u2019s 1996 self-titled album<\/p>\n

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Being immortalized on someone else\u2019s record is a concept with profound implications about identity and ownership. Elden\u2019s reckoning with his lifelong Nirvana connection seems to have been especially complicated, considering that he has recreated the image multiple times and had the album title tattooed on his chest. But Nevermind<\/em> isn\u2019t even the only 1991 Seattle grunge album to face a legal challenge over its cover art: Sub Pop, also Nirvana\u2019s former label, had to swap out the image for Tad\u2019s 8-Way Santa<\/em> after a lawsuit by the shirtless couple in the photo, which the band found in a thrift shop, hardly knowing the woman had become a born-again Christian. In another weirdly similar case, the 12-year-old star of the cover art for the 1996 self-titled album by Placebo, a UK band once known as the \u201cglam-rock Nirvana,\u201d threatened a lawsuit in 2012, claiming that the group ruined his life. The sad-faced man in a flying helmet on the cover of a different 1996 album, Matchbox 20\u2019s Yourself or Someone Like You<\/em>, reportedly sued in 2005, citing emotional distress.<\/p>\n

An early high-profile instance of a legal challenge by cover stars occurred with the Rolling Stones\u2019 1978 album Some Girls<\/em>. Designed by Peter Corriston, who did the art for Led Zeppelin\u2019s Physical Graffiti<\/em> and went on to handle the covers of the next three Stones albums, the original die-cut art for Some Girls<\/em> depicted the faces of the Rolling Stones and various female celebrities in the style of a 1950s wig advertisement. Unlike the Beatles circa Sgt. Pepper\u2019s<\/em>, though, the Stones hadn\u2019t sought out permission. Lucille Ball was the first of the women to threaten a lawsuit, followed by Raquel Welch and the estates of both Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe. The wig company chased down its own legal settlement. Early pressings of Some Girls<\/em> became collectors\u2019 items, and the art has gone through multiple iterations since; at one point, brightly colored blocks replaced the women\u2019s faces and a \u201cpardon our appearance\u2014cover under re-construction\u201d warning was added. There were multiple legal concepts in play\u2014the right of celebrities to control their image, the wig company\u2019s copyright over its advertisements\u2014but on a human level, the lesson seems to be that before putting someone\u2019s face on an album cover, musicians may want to check if that\u2019s cool with the subject. Jagger is said to have apologized to Liza Minnelli, Garland\u2019s daughter, at Studio 54.<\/p>\n

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Dead Kennedys\u2019 1985 album Frankenchrist<\/em><\/p>\n

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The general guideline of first obtaining permission perhaps applies all the more when the cover art shows people who aren\u2019t expecting to be in the public eye. Hardcore punk innovators Dead Kennedys found this out the hard way with their 1985 album Frankenchrist<\/em>, which has a photograph on the cover showing a parade by Shriners International, a Masonic organization noted for their red fezzes and children\u2019s hospitals. Four Detroit-area Shriners, claiming that the picture was published in Newsweek<\/em> a decade earlier, sued the band as well as the magazine after recognizing themselves on the front of the record. Of course, the Shriners might never have known about the album, released via singer\/guitarist Jello Biafra\u2019s independent Alternative Tentacles label, if not for bigger problems: Included within the album was a poster of penises, which led to criminal obscenity charges against the band. An August 1987 trial ended in a hung jury, but Dead Kennedys\u2019 next record, Bedtime for Democracy<\/em>, was their last before breaking up. A decade later, the prosecutor in the case, former Los Angeles deputy city attorney Michael Guarino, acknowledged the proceedings were a mistake, saying that authorities should \u201cfocus on the tremendous amount of conflict of interest at the top, the accountants, the lawyers, the politicians, and get out of the area of freedom of expression.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Sometimes the details of securing permission can be trickier than they might seem. The cover for Dido\u2019s 2008 album Safe Trip Home<\/em> shows an astronaut that looks like little more than a white dot floating in space. NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless II, who was photographed on a pioneering spacewalk more than two decades earlier, didn\u2019t own the copyright for the picture, but he sued Dido, Getty Images, and Sony Music anyway in 2010, citing his \u201cendorsement value\u201d and claiming they used his \u201cpersona\u201d without permission. (The lawsuit was settled in 2011 for an undisclosed amount.) When Vampire Weekend used an \u201980s Polaroid for the cover of 2010\u2019s Contra<\/em>, the model, Ann Kirsten Kennis, filed a $2 million lawsuit, claiming that the signature on a photo release form was a forgery; that case also resulted in a confidential settlement. Whether a highly visible astronaut or a previously obscure model, the response to seeing themselves on an album cover seems to have been similar: As Kennis once explained, \u201cIt\u2019s like, don\u2019t just use my picture all over the place.\u201d For the cover of Van Morrison\u2019s 2017 album Roll With the Punches<\/em>, a photo of former wrestler Billy Two Rivers and his signature Mohawk hairstyle was swapped out after a lawsuit and ensuing settlement, suggesting that even the most stubborn musicians will settle with cover subjects.<\/p>\n

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\"Cardi<\/span><\/div>\n
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Cardi B\u2019s 2016 mixtape Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1<\/em><\/p>\n

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In the toughest disputes, musicians may find themselves spending valuable time in court. \u201cI got real lawsuits with real shit, and I got to deal with this bullshit,\u201d Cardi B said in a 2019 deposition. \u201cThis is four hours long, taking away from my time, my job, my motherhood.\u201d Last December, a judge ruled that model Kevin Brophy Jr.\u2019s lawsuit against Cardi over the cover of a 2016\u2019s Gangsta Bitch Music Vol. 1<\/em> mixtape could go to trial. The art depicts Cardi tipping back a bottle of Corona while a man with a tiger and snake back tattoo goes down on her. While the model isn\u2019t Brophy, the tattoo is his. Cardi\u2019s lawyers have argued that changes to the tattoo, such as the removal of a neck portion, constitute \u201ctransformative fair use,\u201d but U.S. District Court Judge Cormac Carney held that whether these changes were \u201csignificant\u201d enough would be up to a jury. The two sides talked over Zoom last week about a potential settlement, according to court records.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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From Some Girls<\/em> to elaborate back tattoos, being portrayed on an album cover without consent certainly can touch a nerve. The legal issues\u2014who owns the copyright, a prominent person\u2019s control over their likeness\u2014ultimately determine what happens in court. Proximity to money, not just fame, inevitably brings scrutiny to cover subjects who refuse to silently go along with artists\u2019 visions. But Elden\u2019s evolving views on his naked baby photo appearing on the cover of one of the best-selling albums of all time hint at something more complicated. It probably doesn\u2019t help that alterations made it look as if he\u2019s chasing a dollar bill hanging from a fishhook. In a 2016 interview, Elden described approaching Nirvana about an art show and being shunted off to their business team: \u201cWhy am I still on their cover if I\u2019m not that big of a deal?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

Source URL: https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/thepitch\/a-brief-history-of-musicians-being-sued-by-their-album-cover-subjects\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Columns A Brief History of Musicians Being Sued by Their Album Cover Subjects From the famous faces of Some Girls to the naked baby on Nevermind, cover-art infamy isn\u2019t always appreciated. By Marc Hogan August 26, 2021 Graphic by Derek Abella The baby on the cover of Nirvana\u2019s 1991 classic Nevermind isn\u2019t as alone as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1161216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[54],"class_list":["post-1161215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1161215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1161216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1161215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1161215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1161215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}