{"id":2924,"date":"2024-10-08T19:12:58","date_gmt":"2024-10-08T19:12:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/band-sues-universal-music-over-200m-in-royalties\/"},"modified":"2024-10-08T19:12:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T19:12:58","slug":"band-sues-universal-music-over-200m-in-royalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/band-sues-universal-music-over-200m-in-royalties\/","title":{"rendered":"Band Sues Universal Music Over $200M in Royalties"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tLimp Bizkit and frontman Fred Durst are suing Universal Music Group (UMG) over allegations that the label owes the band more than $200 million, with Durst\u2019s lawyers writing that he had \u201cnot seen a dime in royalties\u201d over the decades \u2014 and that hundreds of other artists may have been treated similarly.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a lawsuit filed Tuesday (Oct. 8) in Los Angeles federal court, attorneys for Durst and the 1990s rap rock band accused UMG of implementing a \u201csystemic\u201d and \u201cfraudulent\u201d policy that was \u201cdeliberately designed\u201d to conceal royalties from artists and \u201ckeep those profits for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUMG\u2019s creation of such a system, while holding itself out as a company that prides itself on investing in and protecting its artists, makes plaintiffs\u2019 discovery of UMG\u2019s scheme all the more appalling and unsettling,\u201d Durst\u2019s lawyers write, adding that \u201cpossibly hundreds of other artists\u201d had also \u201cunfairly
had their royalties wrongfully withheld for years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a stunning claim, Durst alleges that as recently as August, Limp Bizkit had \u201cnever received any royalties from UMG,\u201d despite the band\u2019s huge success during its turn-of-the-century peak. The lawsuit said the band\u2019s albums had all sold millions of copies, and that Limp Bizkit continues to have \u201cmillions of streaming users per month on Spotify alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDespite this tremendous \u2018come back,\u2019 the band had still not been paid a single cent by UMG in any royalties until taking action against UMG, leading one to ask how on earth that could possibly be true,\u201d Durst\u2019s lawyers write.<\/p>\n

\n\tA spokesman for UMG did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\n\tDurst claims that the current dispute dates to April when he retained new representatives who were \u201cshocked\u201d when he informed them he had \u201cnot received any money for any Limp Bizkit exploitations \u2014 ever.\u201d He claims UMG had previously told him that he was not being paid because the band remained unrecouped \u2014 meaning its royalties still had not surpassed the amount the group had been paid in upfront advances.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDurst explained that he had been informed by UMG that he had not received any royalty statements because UMG told him over the years that it was not required to provide them since his account was still so far from recoupment,\u201d his lawyers write. \u201cDurst\u2019s representatives, suspicious that UMG was wrongfully claiming Plaintiffs\u2019 accounts were unrecouped, suggested investigating further.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen Durst\u2019s reps contacted UMG, they say they learned that Limp Bizkit\u2019s accounts actually held more than $1 million in royalties but that the label had \u201cfailed to alert\u201d the band about the money. That prompted more suspicion about \u201cUMG\u2019s accounting and payment practices\u201d and an investigation into Limp Bizkit\u2019s records.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey didn\u2019t like what they found. According to the lawsuit, UMG had allegedly failed to issue royalty statements at all during significant periods of the band\u2019s history, including \u201cduring the height of Limp Bizkit\u2019s fame.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUMG\u2019s failure to issue royalty statements in particular from 1997-2004 \u2014 the height of the band\u2019s fame and during periods in which they made record-breaking sales \u2014 with respect to its most popular albums suggests that UMG was intentionally concealing the true amount of sales, and therefore royalties, due and owing to Limp Bizkit in order to unfairly keep those profits for itself.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe suggestion that the band\u2019s albums are still unrecouped is also \u201chighly suspect,\u201d Durst\u2019s lawyers write, citing the band\u2019s huge commercial success during its early years: \u201cGiven that Limp Bizkit\u2019s first three albums had already sold several million copies by the early 2000s, the recording funds and costs should have been quickly recouped, and UMG should have started paying royalties on those albums right away \u2014 not over twenty years later,\u201d the lawsuit reads.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit also points to potential \u201cfraudulent accounting practices\u201d that Durst\u2019s attorneys claim were used by UMG to improperly keep the band in the red and avoid paying royalties.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBut where did this additional $199,676.00 charged to the account come from?\u201d his lawyers write, referring to one such alleged inconsistency. \u201cIt seems to have come out of thin air to overdraft Limp Bizkit\u2019s due and payable account in order to defraud Limp Bizkit and show an unrecouped account.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen those issues were raised with UMG, the lawsuit says the label argued that Limp Bizkit had been paid $43 million in recoupable advances over the years, which explained why the royalties had not started flowing into the accounts until recently. Durst\u2019s attorneys say the label eventually released $1.03 million to the band and $2.3 million to Durst\u2019s Flawless Records, but that they\u2019re owed far more than that.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cGiven the vast amounts of money collected by UMG in relation to sales of Limp Bizkit\u2019s and Flawless Records\u2019 albums over the years \u2026 UMG is liable to plaintiffs for tens of millions of dollars in copyright infringement, if not more,\u201d the lawsuit reads. \u201cIndeed, Plaintiffs allege that the amounts owed to them by UMG following the rescission of these agreements will easily surpass $200 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn technical terms, the lawsuit seeks not only allegedly unpaid royalties, but also a ruling voiding the band\u2019s contract with the label, the return of the band\u2019s copyrights to their recordings and copyright infringement damages over those rights.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Limp Bizkit and frontman Fred Durst are suing Universal Music Group (UMG) over allegations that the label owes the band more than $200 million, with Durst\u2019s lawyers writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3744,1105,593,1219,479,2501],"class_list":["post-2924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-200m","tag-band","tag-music","tag-royalties","tag-sues","tag-universal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}