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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 def

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevermind#Artwork That's probably how the media tracked him down for recreations.

Nicksil 5y ago
>2) The record label are the ones who ultimately profited off the image. Were the parents (or whomever consented) not compensated?
- dbingham 5y ago
  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.
  - namdnay 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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.
      - ghaff 5y ago
        >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 5y ago
        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.
      - _jal 5y ago
        > 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?
  - b3morales 5y ago
    > 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 5y ago
      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 5y ago
        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?
delaynomore 5y ago
> 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.
jollybean 5y ago
"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.
- dbingham 5y ago
  The issue is not his nudity so much as the commercial use of his image.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    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.)
  - jollybean 5y ago
    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.
djrogers 5y ago
> 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.

Nicksil 5y ago

>2) The record label are the ones who ultimately profited off the image. Were the parents (or whomever consented) not compensated?

dbingham 5y ago
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.
- namdnay 5y ago
  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 5y ago
    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.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      >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 5y ago
        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.
    - _jal 5y ago
      > 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?
- b3morales 5y ago
  > 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 5y ago
    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 5y ago
      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?

delaynomore 5y ago

> 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.

jollybean 5y ago

"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.

dbingham 5y ago
The issue is not his nudity so much as the commercial use of his image.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  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.)
- jollybean 5y ago
  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.

djrogers 5y ago

> 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.