Metal Anarchy

According to Billboard, Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst has filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG). He claims the label owes the band over $200 million in unpaid royalties.

The complaint alleges that UMG used a “systemic” and “fraudulent” policy that was “deliberately designed” to hide royalties from artists. It continued:

“Plaintiffs’ discovery of UMG’s design flaw in its royalty software is systemic and affects not only Plaintiffs but possibly hundreds of other artists who have unfairly had their royalties wrongfully withheld for years. 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 claims Limp Bizkit “never received any royalties from UMG” despite their success and millions of record sales. This extends to their ongoing resurgence in popularity:

“In recent years, interest has grown in the band and it currently has millions of streaming users per month on Spotify alone. Year-to-date in 2024, Limp Bizkit has over 450 million streams, and is on track to have over 793 million streams by the end of 2024. Indeed, starting around 2017-2018, interest in Limp Bizkit began to increase exponentially, and the band went from having a relatively quiet period during the 2010s to exploding in popularity. Currently, the band is selling out arenas and headlining major festivals — without producing any new music.

The performance of Limp Bizkit’s assets has been on a consistent and substantial upward trend, seeing approximately 68% growth the past year alone. Prior to that, the band’s assets have been steadily growing approximately 30-40% each year, again despite the fact that the band has not released any new music. 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 howon earth that could possibly be true.”

The suit added:

“In or around early April 2024, Durst retained new representation and explained that he had not received any money for any Limp Bizkit exploitations — ever. Durst’s representatives were shocked because they were aware of Limp Bizkit’s phenomenal increase in popularity over the past several years. Not only that, Durst was informed by the prior owner of Flip Records that Flip Records was receiving millions of dollars in recent years on Limp Bizkit assets, and that the amounts that Flip Records was getting from UMG had grown exponentially over the past few years, as interest in the band was renewed.

Knowing that UMG knew that revenues had exploded since they were paying exponentially more and more to their label partner Flip Records, Durst and his representatives started to look for Durst’s royalty statements from UMG and couldn’t find any. 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. Durst’srepresentatives, suspicious that UMG was wrongfully claiming Plaintiffs’ accounts were unrecouped, suggested investigating further.”

Durst’s representatives eventually contacted UMG and discovered that Limp Bizkit had $1 million in royalties, but the label “failed to alert” them. This raised more red flags about “UMG’s accounting and payment practices.”

Upon further investigation, they also found out that “UMG failed to issue any royalty statements for a number of accounting periods”:

“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.”

Durst’s lawyers also said the claims of unrecouped albums are “highly suspect”:

“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 also cited “fraudulent accounting practices” that were allegedly used to keep the band in the red:

“But where did this additional $199,676.00 charged to the account come from? 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.”

UMG claim the band were paid $43 million in recoupable advances, which is why it took so long to see money coming into their accounts. The label have since released $1.03 million to the band and $2.3 million to Durst’s Flawless Records, but they believe they are owed much more:

“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.”

Durst is currently seeking unpaid royalties, while also trying to get Limp Bizkit‘s contract with the label voided. He also wants the copyrights to the band’s recordings and damages related to copyright infringement.