Universal Music Criticizes Fred Durst’s Unpaid-Royalties Suit As ‘Fiction’ Ahead of Expected January Dismissal Hearing

Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst during a live performance. Photo Credit: CarterSterling

The massive unpaid-royalties lawsuit filed by Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst against Universal Music should be tossed – at least according to the major label itself, which says the complaint “is based on a fallacy.”UMG laid out its qualms with the action, submitted by Limp Bizkit, Durst, and Durst’s Flawless Records, across 35 detail-oriented pages. We covered the original complaint shortly after its filing early last month.

Just to recap, though, Durst and the other plaintiffs allegedly failed to receive millions in due royalties from the major-label defendant. UMG, the filing parties’ initial suit explains at length, allegedly turned to “unsubstantiated costs” to make the relevant accounts appear unrecouped.

And despite ultimately receiving millions in payments under the deals in question – involving not only Limp Bizkit, but an Interscope-Flawless JV as well – the plaintiffs are seeking the pacts’ termination.

Of course, there are two sides to every story – and every legal battle. Enter Universal Music’s newly levied retort, filed in support of an expected dismissal-motion hearing on January 6th. At the top level, the leading label says it most certainly didn’t work to conceal owed royalties via its payment software. Rather, contrary to the plaintiffs’ position that they learned of the allegedly missing compensation in April 2024, UMG is pointing to purported January 2023 conversations involving a royalties exec and the plaintiffs’ then-business manager.

“[O]ver a year earlier, a Senior Director in the Royalties Department at UMG had unilaterally and affirmatively reached out to that same business manager—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.

“In response,” this important section continues, “Mr. Ta stated that all members of Limp Bizkit but one (including Plaintiff 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. In other words, Plaintiffs’ entire narrative that UMG tried to conceal royalties is a fiction.”

Ta allegedly informed UMG of his rights-assignment misstatement in April 2024, and the mentioned multimillion-dollar payments purportedly reached the plaintiffs in August.(Not helping the situation, UMG has confirmed an “‘embarrassing’ mistake in failing to earlier remit certain profit-split payments to Flawless Records,” which the plaintiffs have painted as an intentional effort to deprive them of royalties from various acts under the banner.)

Shifting to specific dismissal arguments, the Flip Records claims (extending to Limp Bizkit’s initial three albums) are “subject to a mandatory New York forum-selection clause” and must be dismissed because the case is being heard in California, per Universal Music.

Meanwhile, all the contract-termination claims fail because, among other things, the plaintiffs “have not alleged such a total failure to make payments under the agreements at issue,” according to the major.

Plus, the deals’ terms expressly prevent termination for royalty-accounting reasons, the text claims in many more words. When it comes to the plaintiffs’ allegations of inflated (and changing) advance balances, UMG says “positive balances in one account were offset by negative balances from another account” on certain “various occasions.”

As to where things go from here, evidence suggests that the plaintiffs will have a lot to say about UMG’s response, which, as noted, is setting the stage for an anticipated early January dismissal hearing before the court.

On the “lot to say” front, after this piece was published, a Limp Bizkit rep reached out with a statement accusing Universal Music Group of “desperately grasping at technicalities.”

“When someone is caught red handed,” the rep told us of the intensifying courtroom confrontation, “their first response is often to hire very expensive outside law firms who first, as a matter of course, try anything to dismiss the suit when they are in trouble with the facts.

“In this case, we believe UMG is using a typical, formulaic, well-trodden strategy of reaching for any escape route by desperately grasping at technicalities. We will rely on facts, the law, and the courts. We have no desire to prove a solid case in press releases.”