Hole, whose album ‘Celebrity Skin’ entered the charts at Number 11 this week, could be hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit from the publishers of Celebrity Skin magazine in the US.
The magazine, which has been publishing in America for 19 years, features photos of scantily-clad Hollywood stars and models, often taken at premieres. One of their hottest ‘scoops’ was a series of pre-surgery photographs of Pamela Anderson. Ironically, the magazine has also featured revealing pictures of Courtney Love in the past.
Celebrity Skin‘s publishers, Crescent, claim representatives for Hole initially approached the magazine requesting permission to use the name but then went ahead and used it before that permission had been formally granted. The publishers say Love “may now have crossed the line to trademark infringement” by releasing the album.
Commenting on ‘Celebrity Skin’ as a proposed title, Courtney Love said in an interview with NME in 1995: “I have a total vision for the record, I have a title. I want to call it ‘Use Once And Destroy’ or ‘Celebrity Skin’. I think I’m gonna call it ‘Celebrity Skin’ because I’ve touched so goddamn much of it. I love that title – it’s very poignant. In the States there’s this nudie mag called Celebrity Skin which shows photos of any celebrity who has had a nipple or a vagina coming out during an event, like a gown gave away too much.”