As a baby, Spencer Elden appeared on the cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind: floating in a pool, completely naked, grasping for a dollar on a fishhook. It’s one of the most iconic album covers ever, and Elden dined out off it for years. But in 2021, Elden sued Nirvana, claiming the image was child pornography. The case was dismissed in January 2022, then dismissed again in September 2022. An appeals court revived the suit in December 2023, and now the legal system has once again come to the same conclusion.

A judge in US District Court in California ruled Tuesday that the Nevermind cover is “not child pornography” and does not come close to meeting the definition of the term, Billboard reports. “Neither the pose, focal point, setting, nor overall context suggest the album cover features sexually explicit conduct,” Judge Fernando M. Olguin wrote in his ruling. “This image – an image that is most analogous to a family photo of a nude child bathing – is plainly insufficient to support a finding of [child pornography].”

Elsewhere in the ruling, Olguin wrote, “Plaintiff has, for many years, embraced and financially benefited from being featured on the album cover. Plaintiff’s actions relating to the album over time are difficult to square with his contentions that the album cover constitutes child pornography and that he sustained serious damages as a result.”

Elden can still appeal this decision, so perhaps we’ll get to post about him losing again a couple years from now.