Universal Music Group has asked the court to dismiss a $200 million lawsuit filed by Limp Bizkit and its frontman, Fred Durst, alleging unpaid royalties and other allegations.
In a motion to dismiss filed in California on Friday (November 22), UMG writes that Durst et al.’s “complaint is based on a fallacy” and “should be dismissed with prejudice”.
Durst and Limp Bizkit sued UMG last month, claiming that the major music company “designed and implemented royalty software and systems that were deliberately designed to conceal artists’ (including Plaintiffs’) royalties and keep those profits for itself.”
The band’s original filing, which you can read in full here, claimed further that their “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”.
It added: “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”.
The complaint states that Durst never received royalties from UMG, despite Limp Bizkit having sold more than 45 million records since the band signed in the 1990s with California indie Flip Records, with distribution from UMG’s Interscope.
According to the motion filed by lawyers for UMG on Friday, communications between Limp Bizkit’s business manager and a Senior Director in the Royalties Department at UMG “eviscerate [the] claim” that it was only after the band’s business manager contacted UMG in April 2024 that Limp Bizkit et al “discovered this fraud.”
UMG says that those communications show that over a year earlier, an exec in its Royalties Department had “unilaterally and affirmatively reached out to that same business manager” — named as Paul Ta at Level Four Business Management LLC — and “advised him of the need to “set up a vendor profile for Limp Bizkit” so that the company could “start making royalty payments” to the band.
According to UMG, in response, Ta stated that “all members of Limp Bizkit but one” (including Fred Durst) had “sold/assigned their share” of royalties to others, and that “accordingly, no royalties were payable to Durst or the other identified members of the band”.
Added UMG: “In other words, Plaintiffs’ entire narrative that UMG tried to conceal royalties is a fiction. Mr. Ta’s statement to UMG regarding the sale/assignment was apparently an error, which he realized some fifteen months later when he again communicated with UMG’s Royalties Department, and Plaintiffs concede thereafter receiving millions of dollars in payments from UMG.”
“Plaintiffs nevertheless brought this suit alleging breach of contract and fraud on their ‘suspici[on]’ that they are owed more royalties, and seeking rescission of the parties’ agreements, among other relief.”
UMG’s filing on Friday, which you can read here, explained further that the band’s business manager contacted Universal’s Royalty Department again on April 9, 2024, and ” corrected his prior misstatement and advised that ‘most of the Limp Bizkit members have only assigned 13 their respective share of publishing royalties’ and he was not aware of the band assigning their artist royalties to any other companies”.
With this “new information in hand”, UMG claims in its motion to dismiss that it “then began the process of obtaining the required forms and bank information to begin paying out royalties to the band”.
UMG says it paid Limp Bizkit $1.03 million in back royalties in August 2024 and paid Flawless Records $2.3 million in “back profit participation” the following day.
Universal says that it then indicated that all “outstanding royalties and profits” had been paid, but “despite these payments, on September 30, 2024, Limp Bizkit served UMG “with a 22 formal Notice of Rescission of the Flip Agreement, the Recording Agreement, and the 23 Flawless Agreement (the ‘Rescission Notice’).”
UMG adds that, when it rejected the Rescission Notice, Limp Bizkit filed the current lawsuit against the music company asserting “no less than fifteen state (and one federal) putative claims for relief” including breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraudulent concealment and other claims.
The lawsuit also seeks compensation for other artists who worked with UMG through Durst’s Flawless Records. It also asks the court to return the copyrights UMG holds on those artists’ works,Music Business Worldwide