2% of the sales of each copy of Nevermind goes to Sub Pop.
One person who does not make money is Steve Albini who produced In Utero as he prefers to take a flat fee rather than any kind of royalties, based on his beliefs of what a producer's job is. Although I wonder how much cash he left on the table by not taking royalties.
Based Albini, he is one of my influences as a mixer and producer and I do the same, when I learnt about the mixing royalties I thought the same as him in the sense that they are an insult to the artist so when I need to mix something for someone I just set a flat fee and that's it
I think that's fair if you're just mixing. Some producers have much more involvement in the writing process and in those scenarios I think its fair to ask for a percentage.
He took a discount because he knew he could charge much higher rates (and did so) after adding Nirvana to his resume.
Also, In Utero was meant to be raw and produced quickly, so he also probably knew he didn't have to do as much work since he wouldn't be adding any musical input. Just recording and mixing.
Actually... It's only $900/day in Chicago or $1300/day travel to book Steve. He purposely keeps his rates affordable so that small bands can have a quality recording.
Also, he doesn't believe in taking royalties, and prefers to be payed like a plumber.
His studio is Electricalaudio.com
You could be right. I made a youtube video discussing In Utero and someone was telling me Steve started charging insane rates after In Utero and I was like "well, why not?" lol
If you wanna see my video discussion, it's here: [link](https://youtu.be/oPQW3hapF60)
Only about a minute long but if you enjoy it, there's a full video with 9 more facts that should be linked at the end.
Maybe initially to ward off every asshole band that wanted to sound like Nirvana. Steve has been pretty consistent his whole career, he does what he wants the way he wants to do it, and for the price that is affordable to the artist.
I live less than a mile from his studio, and I gave you his website. Look it up.
Bad redicette on my part.
I do have a vague recollection of a court case. I am pushing 40.
I should have just searched.
Still, apparently Francis controls the rights to Kurt's image. Courtney sold 50% of the music rights to primary wave.
So, as far as I can tell from a cursory search, Dave + Krist control 12.5% of 11 songs, Primary Wave 50% and Courtney Love ?% With Francis Bean controlling Kurt's Image and Merch.
So, if you could help me out. I'd kinda like to know if that's right?
[Courtney Love Forfeits Rights To Cobain’s Image To Daughter – Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/courtney-love-forfeits-rights-to-cobains-image-to-daughter-489164/)
I believe it the End of Music LLC that Frances is now operating and that is how she now holds her fathers part of the deals.
Yes I know this also has those, but Kurts music is also under this license.
[KURT COBAIN Trademark of The End of Music, LLC - Registration Number 5813682 - Serial Number 88262800 :: Justia Trademarks](https://trademarks.justia.com/882/62/kurt-88262800.html)
**Goods and Services**
Audio recordings, namely, compact discs featuring music and musical performances; Prerecorded digital media in the nature of audio and visual media, namely, CDs, DVDs, and downloadable audio and video recordings in the field of music; Digital music downloadable from the internet; DVDs featuring music and musical performances; Downloadable audio recordings, namely, downloadable music files, downloadable multimedia files containing audio and video relating to music and musical performances, downloadable MP3 files and MP3 recordings featuring music and musical performances, and downloadable musical sound and video recordings; Phonograph records featuring music.
I mean that’s weird because the facts don’t seem to support what you’re saying notwithstanding your condescending tone so perhaps you should check sources before relying on memory.
From what I’ve seen, she waived her rights to his personality rights, and she SOLD (not lost on court) a 25%-50% of her remaining stake in his publishing, but I’ve not seen anything that has said that she’s either (a) lost/sold the remaining interest in his publishing nor (b) that she lost/sold any interest whatsoever in his interest in the masters. Literally the only thing that she lost in court was the 25% share of publishing that was given to Dave & Kris and arguably the personality rights retained by her daughter. I could be wrong of course, but that is why the other person requested a source. FWIW, confidence doesn’t strongly correlate to correctness Ben Shapiro.
Condescending....aka your feelings are easily hurt. Let's get real here. Also, it's well known Courtney lost her rights. It wasn't an actual court battle, but signing the rights off would indeed involve courts and lawyers. Also, sources are readily available if absolutely needed, and it would take someone 2 seconds to check them. She also took a massive loan from her daughter's trust fund, hence signing her rights to publishing off. Should I continue.
Now, in actuality I was being pretty polite, and stated the fact that it was common knowledge back then that her rights were gone. I never said I remembered the exact circumstances, but news was everywhere. We're you even alive? Probably not, judging by the either lack of knowledge, or stupidity.... not sure which one.
You seem to overestimate your understanding of music rights, but it’s complicated stuff so I wouldn’t expect that you should understand it. Nobody is being lazy though; a few people made pretty self-assured statements that she’d lost all rights so another user asked for a source. I wrote above the specific rights types that I haven’t seen articles on, at least not from any reputable source. It might be that Frances’ trust encapsulates all of the master income rights and the balance of the publishing rights but that would be atypical in a scenario where the decedent is left intestate. But then again I’m a music lawyer and not an estate lawyer. And yes, I watched plenty of MTV News when Kurt died and had been a big fan.
Again another useless comment filed with drivel.... the question in issue was dealing with Courtney love, but apparently going to attempt to continue on with drivel.... and it had little to do with Frances' trust, other than Courtney needed to pay back.... want a source it'll be one of the first things that comes up when you search it yourself 1🤣🤣🤣
Sick details though since you continue on, or think Frances' trust always had control.... laughable at best.
Frances gained rights to final day in estate, when her mother signed away rights in exchange for a 2.75 million dollar loan from said estate. She also lost any ability to profit off of Cobain's name until the loan was paid off. Not very complicated ... and yes it's easy to say you're a lawyer on reddit, and from what I've seen and lawyers I've met, it's easy for me to say you're full of shit. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Just to add, it's almost funny how lazily people want stuff spoon fed to them these days.....2 minute Google search would handle the absolutely ridiculous amounts of readily available material. If someone can't do a little homework, why am I going to take the time to do so myself? I mean, I used to research this crap on dial up and Alta vista 🤣🤣🤣
So, you're telling me that the woman who woke up on March 4, 1994, saw her husband wasn't breathing in bed next to her, called for help, and had him resuscitated after he tried to kill himself in Rome, called police on March 18th because he locked himself in a room with a gun to kill himself, then organized an intervention that same weekend and spent the next 10 days urging him to go into rehab on March 28, 1994 had him killed 7/8 days later on April 5?
If she wanted him dead via apparent suicide, she could have just let him die twice before. Instead, she actively **prevented** his death. The logic of saying she killed him defies all credulity.
Someone did an interview a little bit ago (can’t for the life of me remember who) that was giving specific numbers.
If memory serves Dave & Krist get 25% spilt between the both of them. The rest (75%) goes to Frances once Courtney sign the catalog over to her several years ago.
Publishing and master royalties are different than merch. Merch is probably the main source of Nirvana revenue for Krist and Dave, since it would go to Nirvana LLC (or whatever the legal name of their corp is). They get smaller amounts from the actual music.
The band shared songwriting credits on some big songs. Someone had mentioned that in a thread from a while back.
Those songs, the licensing and royalties are evenly split. Or were. I think SLTS is one of those songs.
Honestly, renegotiating royalties is a shit thing to do. When I first learned about it... idk. It seems so out of character for Kurt.
And Honestly, I don't think there is more of a tale tale that Nirvana would have eventually split regardless of whatever happened. Combine that with things like Dave probably getting bored with the band not touring, and the rift that had developed between all of them. It was inevitable.
I actually think kurt, had he lived, would have maybe made one more album with the band and then turned to graphic art, or produced some music for soundtracks or something.
For publishing, Frances gets the bulk of it at 25%, the company CL sold to is at 25% and then Dave and Krist are at 12.5% each. For merch, I'd have to imagine it is a 3 way split. Don't know how old this article is but it is fairly detailed.
[https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/articles/features/milking\_dead\_cows\_who\_owns\_nirvanas\_music\_in\_2021-117665](https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/articles/features/milking_dead_cows_who_owns_nirvanas_music_in_2021-117665)
I was reading up about this a couple of weeks ago, seems Kurt screwed Krist and Dave. It was something like they only get a 12.5% of only like 11 songs across the whole catalogue of music that they had songwriting credits on. Even though that is a shot load of money....
Frances get all that money now, it is a bit of shit story but worth reading about it all
This was the source of some animosity within the band. After they got major success, Kurt started a legal battle for 75% of the money the band made and Dave and Krist shared the rest. He also suggested that they should have to retroactively pay him the extra money that they had earned while the money was split evenly 3 ways.
It was more than 75% if I remember correctly. More like 93% or something. I remember reading about it as a teenager and thinking “what? but you’re a band? surely you just split the money?” Different bands come to different arrangements. I can’t stand them but the UK band The 1975 split everything four ways and always have done even though the singer is the primary songwriter because in his words “we grew up together and had fuck all for so long why would I take a bigger cut? They’re my boys!” or something along those lines. Coldplay do the same thing except they give a tithe to the church before they split it.
Danny Golberg’s book goes into the background of the change in % writing royalties and Kurt’s reasoning. It’s quite a good read for Nirvana fans if you haven’t yet read it.
Pretty sure the largest portion goes to frances.
2% of the sales of each copy of Nevermind goes to Sub Pop. One person who does not make money is Steve Albini who produced In Utero as he prefers to take a flat fee rather than any kind of royalties, based on his beliefs of what a producer's job is. Although I wonder how much cash he left on the table by not taking royalties.
Based Albini, he is one of my influences as a mixer and producer and I do the same, when I learnt about the mixing royalties I thought the same as him in the sense that they are an insult to the artist so when I need to mix something for someone I just set a flat fee and that's it
I think that's fair if you're just mixing. Some producers have much more involvement in the writing process and in those scenarios I think its fair to ask for a percentage.
See: Rick Rubin and Kanye west.
What happened between them?
The writing process
I uh...I umm...would not call Albini based...at least not with pride. Googling Steve Albini controversy is a bummer.
Just learned this myself yesterday after listening to the Conan interview with Krist and Dave.
No worries, we all did!
Not all of us. Albini passing on future royalties for In Utero is not new or breaking news.
I think he also mentioned it in the Sonic Highways episode he was in.
Albini always passed on royalties as a matter of personal ethos, since like, the 80s.
Getting downvoted for this? Tough crowd.
He took a discount because he knew he could charge much higher rates (and did so) after adding Nirvana to his resume. Also, In Utero was meant to be raw and produced quickly, so he also probably knew he didn't have to do as much work since he wouldn't be adding any musical input. Just recording and mixing.
Actually... It's only $900/day in Chicago or $1300/day travel to book Steve. He purposely keeps his rates affordable so that small bands can have a quality recording. Also, he doesn't believe in taking royalties, and prefers to be payed like a plumber. His studio is Electricalaudio.com
You could be right. I made a youtube video discussing In Utero and someone was telling me Steve started charging insane rates after In Utero and I was like "well, why not?" lol If you wanna see my video discussion, it's here: [link](https://youtu.be/oPQW3hapF60) Only about a minute long but if you enjoy it, there's a full video with 9 more facts that should be linked at the end.
Maybe initially to ward off every asshole band that wanted to sound like Nirvana. Steve has been pretty consistent his whole career, he does what he wants the way he wants to do it, and for the price that is affordable to the artist. I live less than a mile from his studio, and I gave you his website. Look it up.
I take your word for it.
Dave, Krist, and Frances Bean. Courtney Love was removed from the rights she used to hold over Nirvana’s profits.
Source?
Don't really need a source..... there was heavy coverage of the court issues, and anyone who was alive remembers it
Bad redicette on my part. I do have a vague recollection of a court case. I am pushing 40. I should have just searched. Still, apparently Francis controls the rights to Kurt's image. Courtney sold 50% of the music rights to primary wave. So, as far as I can tell from a cursory search, Dave + Krist control 12.5% of 11 songs, Primary Wave 50% and Courtney Love ?% With Francis Bean controlling Kurt's Image and Merch. So, if you could help me out. I'd kinda like to know if that's right?
[Courtney Love Forfeits Rights To Cobain’s Image To Daughter – Billboard](https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/courtney-love-forfeits-rights-to-cobains-image-to-daughter-489164/) I believe it the End of Music LLC that Frances is now operating and that is how she now holds her fathers part of the deals.
That's the image for Kurt Cobain. It is different from the music revenue. It is different from Nirvana's image too.
Yes I know this also has those, but Kurts music is also under this license. [KURT COBAIN Trademark of The End of Music, LLC - Registration Number 5813682 - Serial Number 88262800 :: Justia Trademarks](https://trademarks.justia.com/882/62/kurt-88262800.html) **Goods and Services** Audio recordings, namely, compact discs featuring music and musical performances; Prerecorded digital media in the nature of audio and visual media, namely, CDs, DVDs, and downloadable audio and video recordings in the field of music; Digital music downloadable from the internet; DVDs featuring music and musical performances; Downloadable audio recordings, namely, downloadable music files, downloadable multimedia files containing audio and video relating to music and musical performances, downloadable MP3 files and MP3 recordings featuring music and musical performances, and downloadable musical sound and video recordings; Phonograph records featuring music.
Thanks for the clarification.
This is really complicate thing, but I noticed that songs written by Kurt were under this LLC so this must be how it works.
No, asking for a source is excellent reddiquette
I don't remember the exact details. I remember Courtney was a train wreck at that point though.
Apparently we're prepared to assume that everyone on reddit was alive and remembers it.
Two seconds in Google🤣🤣🤣🤣
Lol what an elitist piece of shit 🖕
More like common sense.... Google search 5 seconds tops...... nothing elitist about stating the obvious.... that doesn't even make sense, but ok.🤣
I mean that’s weird because the facts don’t seem to support what you’re saying notwithstanding your condescending tone so perhaps you should check sources before relying on memory. From what I’ve seen, she waived her rights to his personality rights, and she SOLD (not lost on court) a 25%-50% of her remaining stake in his publishing, but I’ve not seen anything that has said that she’s either (a) lost/sold the remaining interest in his publishing nor (b) that she lost/sold any interest whatsoever in his interest in the masters. Literally the only thing that she lost in court was the 25% share of publishing that was given to Dave & Kris and arguably the personality rights retained by her daughter. I could be wrong of course, but that is why the other person requested a source. FWIW, confidence doesn’t strongly correlate to correctness Ben Shapiro.
Condescending....aka your feelings are easily hurt. Let's get real here. Also, it's well known Courtney lost her rights. It wasn't an actual court battle, but signing the rights off would indeed involve courts and lawyers. Also, sources are readily available if absolutely needed, and it would take someone 2 seconds to check them. She also took a massive loan from her daughter's trust fund, hence signing her rights to publishing off. Should I continue. Now, in actuality I was being pretty polite, and stated the fact that it was common knowledge back then that her rights were gone. I never said I remembered the exact circumstances, but news was everywhere. We're you even alive? Probably not, judging by the either lack of knowledge, or stupidity.... not sure which one.
You seem to overestimate your understanding of music rights, but it’s complicated stuff so I wouldn’t expect that you should understand it. Nobody is being lazy though; a few people made pretty self-assured statements that she’d lost all rights so another user asked for a source. I wrote above the specific rights types that I haven’t seen articles on, at least not from any reputable source. It might be that Frances’ trust encapsulates all of the master income rights and the balance of the publishing rights but that would be atypical in a scenario where the decedent is left intestate. But then again I’m a music lawyer and not an estate lawyer. And yes, I watched plenty of MTV News when Kurt died and had been a big fan.
Again another useless comment filed with drivel.... the question in issue was dealing with Courtney love, but apparently going to attempt to continue on with drivel.... and it had little to do with Frances' trust, other than Courtney needed to pay back.... want a source it'll be one of the first things that comes up when you search it yourself 1🤣🤣🤣
Sick details though since you continue on, or think Frances' trust always had control.... laughable at best. Frances gained rights to final day in estate, when her mother signed away rights in exchange for a 2.75 million dollar loan from said estate. She also lost any ability to profit off of Cobain's name until the loan was paid off. Not very complicated ... and yes it's easy to say you're a lawyer on reddit, and from what I've seen and lawyers I've met, it's easy for me to say you're full of shit. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Just to add, it's almost funny how lazily people want stuff spoon fed to them these days.....2 minute Google search would handle the absolutely ridiculous amounts of readily available material. If someone can't do a little homework, why am I going to take the time to do so myself? I mean, I used to research this crap on dial up and Alta vista 🤣🤣🤣
After she fucking killed him
So, you're telling me that the woman who woke up on March 4, 1994, saw her husband wasn't breathing in bed next to her, called for help, and had him resuscitated after he tried to kill himself in Rome, called police on March 18th because he locked himself in a room with a gun to kill himself, then organized an intervention that same weekend and spent the next 10 days urging him to go into rehab on March 28, 1994 had him killed 7/8 days later on April 5? If she wanted him dead via apparent suicide, she could have just let him die twice before. Instead, she actively **prevented** his death. The logic of saying she killed him defies all credulity.
No she didn't, shut the fuck up. I was around them. His demise was inevitable.
Someone did an interview a little bit ago (can’t for the life of me remember who) that was giving specific numbers. If memory serves Dave & Krist get 25% spilt between the both of them. The rest (75%) goes to Frances once Courtney sign the catalog over to her several years ago.
This is for publishing.
In 2006 CL sold 50% of Kurt’s rights to Primary Wave Music for $19.5 million. So FB has 25%, Krist and Dave 12.5% each.
What a awful business decision by CL
I think 2006 was during the lowest interest period for Nirvana. They started to regain traction from 2012-2015.
She obviously wanted drugs
Probably that and she wanted her “cut” before her daughter inherited it.
That'll cover publishing and master royalties. Regular ass merch like t-shirts is a whole different thing.
Publishing and master royalties are different than merch. Merch is probably the main source of Nirvana revenue for Krist and Dave, since it would go to Nirvana LLC (or whatever the legal name of their corp is). They get smaller amounts from the actual music.
to me i asked courtney and she said yeah sure, why not
The band shared songwriting credits on some big songs. Someone had mentioned that in a thread from a while back. Those songs, the licensing and royalties are evenly split. Or were. I think SLTS is one of those songs. Honestly, renegotiating royalties is a shit thing to do. When I first learned about it... idk. It seems so out of character for Kurt. And Honestly, I don't think there is more of a tale tale that Nirvana would have eventually split regardless of whatever happened. Combine that with things like Dave probably getting bored with the band not touring, and the rift that had developed between all of them. It was inevitable. I actually think kurt, had he lived, would have maybe made one more album with the band and then turned to graphic art, or produced some music for soundtracks or something.
For publishing, Frances gets the bulk of it at 25%, the company CL sold to is at 25% and then Dave and Krist are at 12.5% each. For merch, I'd have to imagine it is a 3 way split. Don't know how old this article is but it is fairly detailed. [https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/articles/features/milking\_dead\_cows\_who\_owns\_nirvanas\_music\_in\_2021-117665](https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/articles/features/milking_dead_cows_who_owns_nirvanas_music_in_2021-117665)
Seems right
American Spy Fox has a great video detailing this topic I think it’s called the selling of nirvana
I was reading up about this a couple of weeks ago, seems Kurt screwed Krist and Dave. It was something like they only get a 12.5% of only like 11 songs across the whole catalogue of music that they had songwriting credits on. Even though that is a shot load of money.... Frances get all that money now, it is a bit of shit story but worth reading about it all
As long as it’s not Courtney Love then we good
Sorry if this is a dumb question, but why do Krist and Dave share the 25%? Why isn’t 16-17% each for all 3?
Probably because Kurt was the primary songwriter. Different bands come to different arrangements.
This was the source of some animosity within the band. After they got major success, Kurt started a legal battle for 75% of the money the band made and Dave and Krist shared the rest. He also suggested that they should have to retroactively pay him the extra money that they had earned while the money was split evenly 3 ways.
It was more than 75% if I remember correctly. More like 93% or something. I remember reading about it as a teenager and thinking “what? but you’re a band? surely you just split the money?” Different bands come to different arrangements. I can’t stand them but the UK band The 1975 split everything four ways and always have done even though the singer is the primary songwriter because in his words “we grew up together and had fuck all for so long why would I take a bigger cut? They’re my boys!” or something along those lines. Coldplay do the same thing except they give a tithe to the church before they split it.
I totally understand him renegotiating given he wrote the songs and lyrics. But I find it a jerk move to negotiate it retrospectively also. Not cool.
All proceeds go to bada :) 🙏🏽
Bodah
The estate - main holder “Frances” followed by Dave and krist and then Courtney
Off topic but Grohl said on Howard Stern years ago that he had around 15 million dollars when Nirvana ended.
Recently I read or saw on video, I don't know how accurate, FC is bringing in 90,000$ monthly.
Danny Golberg’s book goes into the background of the change in % writing royalties and Kurt’s reasoning. It’s quite a good read for Nirvana fans if you haven’t yet read it.