Nirvana defeat ‘circle of hell’ copyright dispute in the US, but could now face litigation in the UK
A copyright infringement lawsuit over the circles of hell image famously used on Nirvana’s merchandise since the 1990s has been dismissed, but mainly because a judge in the Californian court where the lawsuit was filed reckons the legal battle would be better fought in the UK courts.The image in question was seemingly created in the late 1940s by British writer CW Scott-Giles, depicting Upper Hell as described in Dante Alighieri’s ‘The Divine Comedy’.