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’s lawyers writing that he had “not seen a dime in royalties” over the decades — and that hundreds of other artists may have been treated similarly.
In 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 “systemic” and “fraudulent” policy that was “deliberately designed” to conceal royalties from artists and “keep those profits for itself.”
“UMG’s creation of such a system, while holding itself out as a company that prides itself on investing in and protecting its artists, makes plaintiffs’ discovery of UMG’s scheme all the more appalling and unsettling,” Durst’s lawyers write, adding that “possibly hundreds of other artists” had also “unfairly
had their royalties wrongfully withheld for years.”
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In a stunning claim, Durst alleges that as recently as August, Limp Bizkit had “never received any royalties from UMG,” despite the band’s huge success during its turn-of-the-century peak. The lawsuit said the band’s albums had all sold millions of copies, and that Limp Bizkit continues to have “millions of streaming users per month on Spotify alone.”
“Despite this tremendous ‘come back,’ 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,” Durst’s lawyers write.
A spokesman for UMG did not immediately return a request for comment on Tuesday.
Durst claims that the current dispute dates to April when he retained new representatives who were “shocked” when he informed them he had “not received any money for any Limp Bizkit exploitations — ever.” He claims UMG had previously told him that he was not being paid because the band remained unrecouped — meaning its royalties still had not surpassed the amount the group had been paid in upfront advances.
“Durst 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,” his lawyers write. “Durst’s representatives, suspicious that UMG was wrongfully claiming Plaintiffs’ accounts were unrecouped, suggested investigating further.”
When Durst’s reps contacted UMG, they say they learned that Limp Bizkit’s accounts actually held more than $1 million in royalties but that the label had “failed to alert” the band about the money. That prompted more suspicion about “UMG’s accounting and payment practices” and an investigation into Limp Bizkit’s records.
They didn’t like what they found. According to the lawsuit, UMG had allegedly failed to issue royalty statements at all during significant periods of the band’s history, including “during the height of Limp Bizkit’s fame.”
“UMG’s failure to issue royalty statements in particular from 1997-2004 — the height of the band’s fame and during periods in which they made record-breaking sales — 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.”
The suggestion that the band’s albums are still unrecouped is also “highly suspect,” Durst’s lawyers write, citing the band’s huge commercial success during its early years: “Given that Limp Bizkit’s 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 — not over twenty years later,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit also points to potential “fraudulent accounting practices” that Durst’s attorneys claim were used by UMG to improperly keep the band in the red and avoid paying royalties.
“But where did this additional $199,676.00 charged to the account come from?” his lawyers write, referring to one such alleged inconsistency. “It seems to have come out of thin air to overdraft Limp Bizkit’s due and payable account in order to defraud Limp Bizkit and show an unrecouped account.”
When 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’s attorneys say the label eventually released $1.03 million to the band and $2.3 million to Durst’s Flawless Records, but that they’re owed far more than that.
“Given the vast amounts of money collected by UMG in relation to sales of Limp Bizkit’s and Flawless Records’ albums over the years … UMG is liable to plaintiffs for tens of millions of dollars in copyright infringement, if not more,” the lawsuit reads. “Indeed, Plaintiffs allege that the amounts owed to them by UMG following the rescission of these agreements will easily surpass $200 million.”
In technical terms, the lawsuit seeks not only allegedly unpaid royalties, but also a ruling voiding the band’s contract with the label, the return of the band’s copyrights to their recordings and copyright infringement damages over those rights.
