Limp Bizkit‘s camp have scored a victory in the latest round of the October 2024 lawsuit brought against Universal Music Group by the band’s vocalist Fred Durst. To catch up, last fall, Durst filed a massive $200 million lawsuit suit against Universal Music Group, claiming that he, his bandmates, and several other associated parties & entities had been victims of accounting discrepancies perpetrated by UMG.
That suit accused UMG of breach of contract, fraudulent concealment, fraudulent business practices, copyright infringement and more. Primarily, the alleged misdealing was in relation to Durst and Limp Bizkit claiming to have not received any recording royalties for the roughly 45 million copies of their recorded works sold/streamed while signed with the Flip Records and Interscope/Geffen/A&M label umbrella.
Durst claimed that he had previously been informed by UMG that the group had yet failed to recoup the $43 million advance paid to them by the label during their late 90s/early 2000s run. Upon obtaining new financial representation in April of 2024, Durst claims to have once again brought up the issue with UMG.
He claims that some financial digging found UMG ultimately releasing a payment of $1.03 million to the band, but that the software used by UMG for the payouts had failed to notify him or the band’s camp that they were eligible for the funds. He claims UMG blamed the lack of notification on a ‘software error.’
Durst further claimed that his investigation saw UMG release an additional $2.3 million to his past Interscope/Geffen/A&M imprint label Flawless Records. Several artists were signed to that venture, with the most notable release being Puddle Of Mudd‘s 3x platinum 2001 album “Come Clean“.
However, per Durst‘s claims, prior to these payments, he and his Limp Bizkit bandmates had not received any recording royalties from UMG. For clarity, members of the band are said to have retained separate publishing arrangements that benefitted them financially outside of this dispute.
Durst would further go so far as to allege that Flip Records, the imprint Limp Bizkit were initially signed to during the height of their fame, engaged in a profit-sharing scheme with UMG at his and his band’s expense, thus further muddying the disputed recoupment costs.
Durst‘s suit also alleged that in using the aforementioned accounting software for royalty payouts, UMG were potentially conspiring to avoid paying out numerous other artists. Durst‘s complaint further alleged that UMG had intentionally designed a royalty system that ‘systematically prevented artists from being paid their royalties.’
Durst‘s suit claimed that upon first notifying UMG on July 14th of 2024 of allegedly breaching their contract for reasons stated above, the label was ordered to issue immediate payment for outstanding royalty payments, as well as turn over the missing royalty statements and more documentation, plus the Limp Bizkit master recordings, in a 30-day timeline.
UMG is said to have responded on August 16th that payment for the royalties would be released in ‘1-2 weeks’. On August 24th, attorneys for Durst informed UMG that they had failed to cure the material breaches and provide the requested documentation in the specified timeframe, thus nullifying the disputed record contracts.
Durst and co. went on to allege that any further distribution by UMG of the master recordings for the disputed records would constitute copyright infringement. On August 26th, UMG issued the $1,038,321.87 million back royalties payment to Durst, with $2,348,060 in back profit participation being issued to Flawless Records on August 27th. On September 30th, Durst formally served UMG with notice of rescission for both the Flip Records recording contract and the Flawless Records agreement.
That rescission would essentially revert the rights of the masters of those recordings back to the band and other respective parties. As Durst‘s complaint put it last November:
“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. Indeed, Plaintiffs allege that the amounts owed to them by UMG following the rescission of these agreements will easily surpass $200 million.”
UMG went on to deny the claims leveled against them by Durst and filed a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed, claiming that email communications they had record of with members of the band’s camp would ‘eviscerate’ Durst‘s claims about failing to notify of outstanding payment ahead of the dispute.
They also denied Durst‘s claims of further monies being owed, citing the aforementioned separate 6 figure sums as being the entirely of all “outstanding royalties and profits” owed to Durst and associated parties.
This past January, that case found itself in front of a judge again, this time with the court siding with Universal Music Group. In an initial ruling, Judge Percy Anderson struck down Durst‘s attempt to have the various recording contracts associated with his band and Flawless Records artists voided. Anderson ultimately deemed:
“The Court therefore concludes that Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged the type of ‘substantial’ or ‘total failure’ in the performance of the contracts that could support rescission of the parties’ agreements.”
However, a federal judge has newly ruled yesterday, March 17th, that the copyright infringement claims can remain in play after determining that a state court was the wrong forum for some of Durst‘s claims. As such, the court has now denied UMG‘s motion to dismiss challenging the sufficiency of the copyright claims, instead opting to allow them proceed in a federal court.
Additionally, several of the other claims leveled against UMG were determined to be properly suited to proceed in state court, meaning those claims will need to be refiled, which Durst‘s legal team have indicated they fully intend to do.
