Fred Durst and Limp Bizkit are taking legal action against Universal Music Group (UMG), accusing the label of withholding over $200 million in royalties. The lawsuit, filed on October 8 in a Los Angeles federal court, claims the band has been left in the dark about their earnings for years, despite their massive commercial success.
The suit alleges that Limp Bizkit—along with possibly hundreds of other artists—fell victim to a "fraudulent" system designed to conceal royalties and keep profits in the hands of UMG. Durst’s legal team stated that the band never saw any royalty payments until August of this year, despite selling millions of albums and consistently pulling in millions of streams on platforms like Spotify.
In their complaint, Durst’s attorneys called out UMG for deceptive practices, stating that the label had claimed the band’s accounts were “unrecouped”—a term used in the industry when the costs advanced to artists haven’t yet been covered by sales. According to Durst, this reasoning was given as a justification for why no royalties were paid over the years.
What’s more, the lawsuit contends that Limp Bizkit’s revenue accounts were found to contain over $1 million, but the band was never informed of this balance. The lawyers also highlighted UMG’s failure to provide royalty statements from 1997-2004, a period when the band was at the height of its fame, suggesting that this was an intentional effort to obscure the actual sales and royalties owed to the group.
Durst’s team asserts that Limp Bizkit’s contract should have started paying royalties much sooner, especially given that their first three albums had sold millions by the early 2000s. Instead, UMG allegedly charged the band with a questionable $199,676 sum to keep their account in a negative balance.
In response, UMG claimed that they paid Limp Bizkit $43 million in recoupable advances over the years, which explains the delayed royalties. Eventually, UMG did release $1.03 million to the band and another $2.3 million to Durst’s label, Flawless Records, but the lawsuit claims that much more is owed—potentially over $200 million.
In addition to seeking unpaid royalties, Limp Bizkit is also looking to void their contract with UMG and regain control of their catalog’s copyrights. The case has just begun, and UMG has yet to provide further comments.
Limp Bizkit recently wrapped up their 2024 North American ‘Loserville’ tour in August, during which they performed their track “Clunk” live for the first time in 14 years.
Photo: Jim Dyson/Getty Images
