One of the world’s largest music companies has been accused of stripping “potentially hundreds” of artists and bands of their royalties from ’90s nu-metal band Limp Bizkit.
Thirty years after the band rose to fame, the band and its founder Fred Durst are owed more than $200 million after Universal Music Group (UMG) fraudulently concealed royalties from the band. claims to have.
In a lawsuit filed in California, attorneys representing Durst, Limp Bizkit, and Flawless Records claim that UMG used software “intentionally designed to hide artists’ royalties (including plaintiffs).” He was accused of pocketing the profits.
UMG is one of the most powerful forces in the global music industry, with members ranging from Taylor Swift and Neil Diamond to Dr. Dre and Lenny Rap. The company did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Until filing the lawsuit, Limp Bizkit claimed that it had received "royalty royalties from UMG” despite an “astounding” resurgence in popularity in recent years, with its songs racking up hundreds of millions of plays on streaming platforms in 2024 alone. “Not a single penny was paid,” he claims.
The lawsuit, filed in California federal court, alleges that more bands and artists may also be in short supply. Lawyers for Durst, Limp Bizkit, and Flores Records say the pretrial discovery process, in which both sides in the case exchange information, “potentially hundreds of other artists were similarly wrongly defrauded regarding their royalties.” “It will become clear,” he suggested. , showing that the system was intentionally designed to defraud Plaintiffs and other artists. ”
“These accusations are serious,” said Jay Gilbert, a music industry consultant and former executive at UMG and Warner Music Group. He’s skeptical.
“My gut feeling is that this is not a systematic plan to withhold royalties. Rather, an accounting problem has exploded,” Gilbert said. “It sounded pretty bad and pretty high-pressure, but in my experience I don’t think it’s that dramatic.”
Mark Tavern, who previously worked for record companies including UMG and Sony Music, added that the lawsuit was a “nuclear option.” “I think it’s designed to force a settlement and make it happen quickly.”
“That’s a bit of a stretch,” said Tavern, who now lectures on the music industry at the University of New Haven. “That could probably be easily explained by bureaucracy, incompetence, or the sheer volume of payments that a music company of UMG’s size handles,” he said.
The complaint alleges that Mr. Durst was told by UMG that he had not received a royalty statement because his account was still far from collection, and that Durst executives had been contacting Limp Bizkit for years. The report suggests that he had paid about $43 million upfront.
However, when Durst Bizkit and Limp Bizkit representatives accessed UMG’s royalty statement portal in April, they claim they noticed more than $1 million in unpaid balances.
According to the complaint, UMG paid Limp Bizkit more than $1 million and Flawless Records more than $2.3 million in August, but executives blamed an error in new software for not being able to make early payments. He claimed that.
Gilbert said questions about royalty payments arise “all the time,” but they rarely explode publicly. “This kind of dirty laundry is not aired to the public,” he said, adding that problems are usually resolved “behind the scenes” through audits.
The global music industry has been rapidly transformed over the past few decades, first by the rise of downloads and then by streaming. With hundreds of millions of tracks in the libraries of platforms like Spotify and Apple Music, finding and listening to songs has never been easier.
Let’s take a look at Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff.” The song was first released in May 2000, but you may have heard it while watching TV, scrolling through social media, or playing a video game. . Gone are the days of going to your local record store, browsing the shelves, finding an album, and eventually listening to the song again. Access with just a few taps.
Graph shows Spotify’s monthly active listeners growing rapidly from 2015 to 2023
Limp Bizkit’s lawyer also acknowledged that the band, which disbanded in 2006 and reunited in 2009, had a “relatively quiet period” in the early 2010s. But the lawsuit alleges that interest in the band began to grow “rapidly” around 2017, leading to sold-out arenas and headline festivals.
“There’s a huge pop-punk revival happening,” Tavern said. “The current generation (of fans) is looking back 20 or 25 years.”
These “traditional” artists and artistes, as music industry executives call them, are highly valued by record labels.
According to the complaint, UMG last year sought Durst’s approval to reissue Limp Bizkit’s 2000 album “Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water” on vinyl; The company said it had “repeatedly asked” Durst to participate in the anniversary re-release of Significant Other, another of the company’s albums. To Durst, it seemed like a “money grab.”
In the complaint, the plaintiffs allege that they are owed far more than they have been paid. Durst, Limp Bizkit and Flawless Records are demanding a jury trial. Their lawsuit is already making waves.
“Everyone’s talking about it,” Tavern said, noting that the complex nature of calculating music royalties in the streaming era has caused widespread confusion and, at times, suspicion of the industry’s dominant companies. .
“The way we pay money is completely different and more complex,” he says. “You can point to 450 million streams, but that’s not the same as 450 million records.”
“I think the calm side will prevail,” Gilbert said, indicating that lawyers from both sides would likely meet privately to find out the facts. “This problem will be resolved,” he said. “I think that will go away.”
