Courtney Sells Nirvana Rights Share To Mestel

(CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Courtney Love, the primary beneficiary of Kurt Cobain’s estate, including 95 percent of all Nirvana publishing rights, has sold 25 percent of her share of the publishing catalog to former Virgin Records COO/GM Larry Mestel and his new company, Primary Wave Music Publishing.

“I took on a strategic partner, Larry Mestel, to help me co-manage the estate because it was overwhelming,” Love explained to Rolling Stone. “The affairs of Nirvana are so massive and so huge, and they’ve all fallen on my lap. I own almost all of [the publishing], …and it proved to be too much for me. I needed a partner to take Kurt Cobain’s songs and bring them into the future and into the next generation. And this guy’s the guy to do it.”

“The appeal to me is that [Kurt was] one of the most important songwriters of his time,” Mestel told the magazine. “Kurt was an incredible songwriter, and Courtney is an exceptionally talented person herself. So I felt the combination of Courtney's creativity and the things I can add can really help in creating more value for these copyrights.”

Love and Mestel declined to comment on the specifics of the deal, but a source told Rolling Stone that Primary Wave likely paid in excess of $50 million for the rights.

“My goal is to keep the music very true to who the songwriter was and what his passions and tastes would be,” Mestel added, "and to work through Courtney to figure out exactly the best way to go about exposing his music to a new youth culture to a new generation.” –by CelebrityAccess Staff Writers

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