Courtney Love has finally managed to negotiate a sale of her 25 percent share of Nirvana's catalogue.

The widow of Nirvana's lead singer, Kurt Cobain, inherited her husband's quarter share of the rights to the catalogue of the groundbreaking band after his death in 1994.

However, she has recently been looking for an investor to help her "in the proper development and exploitation of the catalogue," and has now finally decided to sell to Larry Mestel, a former executive at Virgin Records for more than $50 million.

Love has been criticised by some Nirvana fans, who claim that the move is just a cynical attempt to manipulate Nirvana's extensive catalogue which contains such defining songs as Smells Like Teen Spirit, Lithium and Heart Shaped Box to gain better contracts for herself. However, she says that she will not misuse Nirvana's songs when licensing them.

In a statement Love said: "We are going to remain very tasteful and true to the spirit of Nirvana while taking the music to places it has never been before," Love said in a statement.

"I am confident that between the genius of Kurt's music, Courtney's own creativity, and our years of experience in the music business, we can achieve something quite remarkable with these copyrights," Mestel said in a separate statement. "My intention is to work through Courtney to figure out the best way to go about exposing this music to a new youth culture and a new generation."

"This is a complex and unique deal, which I believe will benefit not only all parties involved, but, above all, the music itself," Love's manager Peter Asher said in a statement. "We believe it may become an archetype for similar deals to come. It has taken a long time to get it right."