NEW YORK (AP) - SEATTLE (AP) - After last week saw former
Nirvana members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic denounce
Courtney Love in a lawsuit and in an open letter to fans, Love has responded with some public words of her own.
In an open letter signed from the "The Family of Kurt Cobain," Love maintains that she is acting in her late husband's best interest by stalling the release of the proposed Nirvana box set -- something she sued to do in October of this year.
"What should have been a private business negotiation has become a very public lawsuit," says the letter. "There are many issues that were left unresolved after Kurt's death that we're finally trying to put in order. Other parties have talked about finding 'a personal sense of closure' with Nirvana's music. That's exactly the opposite of what should happen. We want to celebrate Kurt's life and music and make sure Nirvana finds as large an audience as possible. We want future generations of music fans to give the band its rightful place alongside the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and Bob Dylan."
Love balks at Grohl and Novoselic's claims that Nirvana was a three-way partnership equally split among its members, stating over 93 percent of the copyrights of the band's songs are in Cobain's name.
"Kurt Cobain was Nirvana," she says. "He named the band, hired its members, played guitar, wrote the songs, fronted the band onstage and in interviews, and took responsibility for the band's business decisions."
Love states that Cobain refused to sign a partnership agreement when he was alive, and alleges that any partnership since was forced upon Cobain's heirs by attorneys citing a Washington law that would have forced Cobain's family to turn over all the band's interests to Grohl and Novoselic. "That assertion was untrue, but the threat was used to deprive the family of its rights to manage Kurt's legacy," she says.
In conclusion, Love fired off some free legal advice to all musicians out there. "Finally, we'd like to offer very sincere and heartfelt advice to everyone who's in a band: Take care of your business. Make sure you know what the contracts say and that your copyrights are in order. Remember that the lawyers and the managers and the accountants are your employees and that their job is to represent your interests."
Lawyers for Grohl and Novoselic had no comment on the letter at press time.
