The Baby on Nirvana's ‘Nevermind’ Album Cover Is Suing the Band for Child Pornography

Spencer Elden, the man whose baby portrait was used for the cover of American rock band Nirvana's iconic Nevermind album, has filed a lawsuit alleging that the nude image of him used constitutes as child pornography.

As seen above, the album cover depicts a four-month-old Spencer in a swimming pool, naked. The image includes a digitally imposed dollar bill on a fishing hook that the baby appears to be swimming toward and is said to be a photo commentary on capitalism. Spencer, now 30 years old, says his parents never signed a release authorising the use of his image on the album.

 According to US law, non-sexualized nude photos of infants are generally not considered child pornography. However, Robert Y. Lewis, Spencer's lawyer, argues that this particular image can be considered to cross the line into child pornography, writing that the inclusion of currency (which was digitally superimposed after the photograph was taken) in the shot makes the baby appear “like a sex worker.” The legal case also alleges that Nirvana had promised to cover Elden's genitals with a sticker, but the agreement was not upheld.

“Defendants intentionally commercially marketed Spencer’s child pornography and leveraged the shocking nature of his image to promote themselves and their music at his expense,” reads the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court’s central district of California (Source: BBC World). “Defendants used child pornography depicting Spencer as an essential element of a record promotion scheme commonly utilized in the music industry to get attention, wherein album covers posed children in a sexually provocative manner to gain notoriety, drive sales, and garner media attention, and critical reviews.”

Spencer claims he "has suffered and will continue to suffer lifelong damages" as a result of the artwork, including "extreme and permanent emotional distress" as well as "interference with his normal development and educational progress" and "medical and psychological treatment". In the past, Spencer has recreated the album cover several times as a teenager and an adult —always wearing swimming trunks— to mark Nevermind's 10th, 20th and 25th anniversaries.

However, he has at times expressed mixed feelings about the photoshoot. In a 2016 interview, Spencer told Time Magazine that he "got a little upset" about his notoriety as he grew older. "I just woke up already being a part of this huge project," he said. "It's pretty difficult - you feel like you're famous for nothing...It's hard not to get upset when you hear how much money was involved," he continued. "[When] I go to a baseball game and think about it: 'Man, everybody at this baseball game has probably seen my little baby penis,' I feel like I got part of my human rights revoked."

Sencer is asking for damages to the tune of $150,000 (approx 11 Million in INR) from each of the 15 defendants, who include surviving Nirvana band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic; the managers of Kurt Cobain's estate; Kurt Cobain's former wife Courtney Love; and photographer Kirk Weddle.

As of now, representatives for Nirvana and their record labels have yet to respond to these claims.