Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst has sued Common Music Group (UMG) for $200 million, alleging the report firm owes him hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in royalties.
That’s in accordance with a report from Bloomberg, which mentioned Durst filed a grievance in opposition to UMG in a federal court docket in California on Tuesday (October 8).
The lawsuit additionally seeks compensation for different artists who labored with UMG by Durst’s Flawless Data. It additionally asks the court docket to return the copyrights UMG holds on these artists’ works, Bloomberg reported.
The grievance states that Durst by no means acquired royalties from UMG, regardless of Limp Bizkit having offered greater than 45 million information because the band signed within the Nineties with California indie Flip Data, with distribution from UMG’s Interscope.
The grievance says that, thus far this yr, Limp Bizkit has amassed 450 million streams, and is on observe for a complete of greater than 793 million by yr’s finish.
The grievance acknowledged that Durst and his Limp Bizkit bandmates acquired advances on their albums, with UMG protecting recording prices, and have been to begin receiving royalty funds as soon as the prices have been recouped, Bloomberg reported.
UMG allegedly instructed Durst’s representatives that it had spent $43 million on Limp Bizkit’s music, which must be recovered earlier than Durst was paid any royalties. UMG additionally allegedly instructed Durst’s crew that Durst hadn’t acquired any royalty statements as a result of UMG was “not required to offer them since his account was nonetheless so removed from recoupment,” in accordance with the grievance.
Nevertheless, Durst’s representatives found that Flip Data had been paid hundreds of thousands by profit-sharing with UMG. After they logged on to UMG’s database to see Durst’s royalty statements, they discovered that greater than $1 million in earnings have been ready to be paid.
When Durst’s crew contacted UMG about this, the corporate blamed a software program error, Bloomberg experiences, and requested numerous information, together with banking data.
The grievance alleges that UMG by no means meant to pay any royalties to Durst.
Limp Bizkit was shaped in 1994 in Jacksonville, Florida, and signed to Flip and Interscope in 1997, when Interscope was a part of MCA, the predecessor to NBCUniversal and Common Music Group.
The band reached mainstream success with its 1999 sophomore album, Vital Different, and 2000’s Chocolate Starfish and the Sizzling Canine Flavored Water. Each albums hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 charts within the US, and the 2 mixed have offered some 26 million copies worldwide. Vital Different is licensed 7x Platinum within the US, whereas Chocolate Starfish is licensed 6x Platinum.Music Enterprise Worldwide
