[3][4] In September 2002, "You Know You're Right" was subject to a high profile Internet leak, which led to it being put into heavy rotation on radio stations around the world, despite cease and desist orders from DGC's parent company Geffen Records.

Shortly after, it was announced that the lawsuit between Love and Grohl and Novoselic was settled, and that the song would appear on a greatest hits album later that year.

A boombox-recorded home demo, featuring Cobain on vocals and guitar, was released posthumously on the Nirvana box set, With the Lights Out, in November 2004.

Contemporary reviews of the show did not mention the then-unknown song, but Chicago music journalist Jim DeRogatis later described hearing it at the concert in a 2002 Spin article, recalling that "it was classic Nirvana, hitting with the same impact as 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' and boasting a similar structure-a slow, creepy verse, suddenly exploding into a painfully cathartic but undeniably catchy chorus.

[7] Novoselic and Grohl recorded six more songs without Cobain, who had likely left by then, after signing the studio door and adding a drawing of a cat next to his signature.

[7] The masters of the sessions remained in Novoselic's basement until 1998, when work began on a posthumous Nirvana box set with an intended release date of September 2001, the 10th anniversary of the band's major label debut, Nevermind.

[6] Unlike many unreleased Nirvana recordings, the studio version of "You Know You're Right" had never been bootlegged and remained unheard by the public until 2002, when clips provided by Love were played on an episode of the NBC show Access Hollywood.

However, an audience recording of the Aragon Ballroom version began appearing on commercial bootlegs as early as 1994, under erroneous titles such as "On a Mountain" and "Autopilot."

In 1995, Love offered the song to American rock musician Mark Lanegan, a friend of Cobain's, to cover with his band, Screaming Trees.

As Screaming Trees guitarist Gary Lee Conner recalled in the 2023 book Lanegan, "When we were working on songwriting for Dust...Mark is like, 'Courtney wants us to do a song… And it was that song — 'You Know You're Right.'

"[9][10] Conner acknowledged that the band "could have had a big hit" by releasing a cover of a then-unknown Nirvana song, but believes Lanegan may have been wary of capitalizing on Cobain's death.

Love blocked its release, saying that it would be "wasted" on the planned box set, and was better suited to a single-disc collection similar to the Beatles' compilation album 1.

"[13] In August 2001, one of the earliest firsthand descriptions of the studio version appeared in the Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, written by the Seattle music journalist Charles R. Cross, who had been granted access to the recording by Love.

Cross called the song "one of the high-water marks in [Cobain's] entire canon," and wrote that "the plaintive wail in the chorus couldn't be clearer: 'Pain,' he cried, stretching the word out for almost ten seconds, giving it four syllables, and leaving an impression of inescapable torment.

As the lawsuit continued, another description of the studio version appeared in print, in the Spin article The Nirvana Wars, written by DeRogatis and published in June 2002.

[4] In May 2002, four additional clips of "You Know You're Right" were leaked online, leading some to speculate that it had been placed on advance copies of Grohl's heavy metal side project, Probot.

The Seattle radio station 107.7 The End posted a banner on their website that announced: "We took your e-mails and flooded the server at Geffen Records with tons of choice words about their 'You Know You're Right' cease and desist order.

[20] The journalist Charles R. Cross said it featured the "soft-hard dynamics" of Nirvana's 1993 single "Heart-Shaped Box," with quiet verses followed by a loud screamed chorus.

According to Gaar's 2002 Mojo article, it was listed simply as "Kurt's Tune #1" on the tracking sheets from the Robert Lang Studios recording session.

In the liner notes to Nirvana, Rolling Stone writer David Fricke erroneously states that the song had gone under the previous titles of "Autopilot" and "On a Mountain".

[30] Amy McAuliffe from BBC called the song "a poignant reminder of what might have been" and described it as "listening to a dead man snarling out his last gasp of righteous sarcasm.

"[33] Likewise, Larry Flint from Billboard stated, "Unlike most previously unreleased cuts tacked onto best-of sets, 'You Know You're Right' is a potent addition to Nirvana's cache of classic material.

"[34] "You Know You're Right" was ranked as the fifth-best single of the year by Spin, with Charles Aaron calling it a "gnarly little heart-shaped box crammed with feedback, bile, and a gut-shredding chorus.