4 friends discuss what they know or researched and try to figure it out, homicide or suicide? Explicit and other topics discussed.
The Last 48 Hours of Kurt Cobain
Seattle Police detective Mike Ciesynski, now retired (2017), was assigned to the homicide unit for 22 years, 12 of which were in the cold case unit. Ciesynski was asked to review the Kurt Cobain case in 2014
https://wdef.com/2019/04/05/detective-reviewed-kurt-cobains-death-file-details-evidence/
https://www.cnbc.com/2014/04/04/kurt-cobain-and-the-big-business-of-dead-celebs.html
“Kurt Cobain was a titan in pop culture,” Mestel said. “He is one of a very small handful of artists that I consider the absolute peak of credibility and value when it comes to copyrights and music.”
Mestel purchased a stake in the publishing rights of Nirvana’s music from Cobain’s widow, rocker Courtney Love, in a 2006 deal that has been estimated at more than $50 million. At the time, Love was the primary beneficiary of the publishing rights to Kurt Cobain’s estate, which included more than 98 percent of the publishing rights to Nirvana’s music.
Mestel and Primary Wave at one point held 50 percent of the publishing rights to Nirvana’s music, before divesting their interest as part of a $150 million deal with BMG.
The economic staying power of Cobain’s has long been the cause of infighting between its stakeholders.
In 2010, Love reportedly relinquished rights to Cobain’s name and likeness in exchange for a $2.75 million loan from the trust of the couple’s only child, Frances Bean Cobain.
Also in 2010, Frances Bean, then 18, took control of her trust fund, representing more than a third of Cobain’s estate.
Charles R. Cross, author of several books about Cobain, said that the struggles are not just for economic benefit, but also for the management of Cobain’s estate in a way that does justice to his legacy. That includes exercising discretion when it comes to business deals involving the name and likeness of Cobain, and being careful not to “sell out” his image.
In one highly publicized dispute, Love was widely quoted as saying that the memory of Cobain had been “raped” by the use of the band’s hit song “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in the 2011 movie “The Muppets.” Primary Wave and Nirvana’s two surviving members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, reportedly signed off on the use of the song in the movie.
“His catalog has an income stream that has maintained a very steady pace and even growth when most music catalogs have fallen dramatically,” Mestel said.
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