After a protracted six-year legal battle, the dispute between fashion designer Marc Jacobs and the rock band Nirvana over the rights to the iconic “smiley face” logo has come to an end. The controversy began in November 2018, when Marc Jacobs released a collection called “Bootleg Redux Grunge” featuring a design similar to Nirvana’s famous smiley face.

The only difference was that Jacobs replaced the X eyes with “MJ” (his initials) and swapped out the band’s name with the word “Heaven.”

Upon the release of the collection, the remaining members of Nirvana filed a lawsuit, asserting their copyright over the smiley face design, which they claimed was created by Kurt Cobain in 1991. Despite their assertions, former band members Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic stated they were unaware of the design’s origins.

Marc Jacobs’ legal team argued that the copyright registration should be considered invalid due to the lack of any living person with firsthand knowledge of the design’s creation, among other deficiencies. This argument was bolstered by the testimony of Robert Fisher, a graphic designer who worked as an art director at Geffen Records, Nirvana’s label, and who also claimed to have designed the logo. However, his claim was dismissed by the entity managing Nirvana’s copyrights.

Now, after years of legal wrangling, the California federal court has announced that Nirvana’s members, Robert Fisher, and Marc Jacobs have agreed to settle the matter and reach an agreement in the coming weeks. The involved parties have not yet commented publicly on the resolution.

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Author: Enzo Toyoda Coppola, Junior Associate and Cesar Peduti Filho, Managing Partner of Peduti Advogados.

Source: https://lorena.r7.com/post/Marc-Jacobs-e-Nirvana-finalizam-disputa-judicial

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If you want to learn more about this topic, contact the author or the managing partner, Dr. Cesar Peduti Filho.

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