It smells like copyright infringement.

At least that’s what Jocelyn Susan Bundy alleges about ’90s rock band Nirvana and its use of a drawing of hell by her grandfather C.W. Scott-Giles, a British academic and noted writer on heraldry.

Bundy has sued Nirvana LLC, Silva Artist Management and Live Nation Merchandise LLC, as well as its Merch Traffic LLC unit, asserting that Nirvana has been plastering the image on merchandise that includes T-shirts, mugs, records, hoodies, key fobs, patches, buttons, sweaters and more since at least 1997.

The drawing at the center of the lawsuit appears here on a Nirvana shirt that was available from Hot Topic.

The suit, which says the merch was sold at Walmart, Hot Topic, H&M and elsewhere, charges that the drawing may have been used on Nirvana swag as early as 1989, though Bundy is only seeking damages for use since 1997.

The drawing is a map of the upper circles of hell as they were described in the 14th-century epic poem, Divine Comedy by Italian writer Dante Alighieri. Scott-Giles created the work for a translation of Dante’s Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy.

Nirvana skyrocketed to fame in 1991 based on the strength of the single “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” ushering in an era in which so-called alternative rock dominated the musical landscape. Frontman Kurt Cobain died by suicide in 1994, but the band’s music has continued to attract new fans over the years and its merch has been embraced by Gen Zers going for a retro-hip fashion aesthetic.

NIRVANA Sued For Using Illustration From Translation Of Dante's 'Inferno' On Band Merchandise https://t.co/pBcPBarwq4 pic.twitter.com/7o9JPK4nGL

— BLABBERMOUTH.NET (@BLABBERMOUTHNET) May 1, 2021

None of that’s impressing Bundy, though. Of Nirvana’s use of the drawing she says was made by her grandfather, Bundy’s suit says that the band’s LLC and “parties acting on its behalf routinely made false claims of ownership of the copyright in the illustration by placing false copyright notices on the infringing products in substantially this form ‘© [Year] Nirvana’.”

The suit continues: “Finally, in documents filed in two other copyright actions before this Court, Defendant NIRVANA has implied that Kurt Cobain created the illustration or, in the alternative, that the illustration is in the public domain in the United States, and that, therefore, NIRVANA and its licensees are free to use it without authorization or compensation. NIRVANA and some of the other Defendants have maintained this position in their responses to Plaintiff’s continuing requests to cease their wrongful conduct in the U.S. and abroad.”

This isn’t Nirvana’s first court tussle over copyright issues. In 2018, the group sued fashion designer Marc Jacobs for allegedly stealing its smiley face design. Jacobs requested summary judgement dismissal in November 2020. Things escalated further in the Jacobs/Nirvana feud earlier this year.