UMG Motions to Dismiss Fred Durst’s $200 Million Lawsuit Claiming It’s “Based On a Fallacy”
As we reported back in October, Fred Durst filed a massive lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG) claiming that, after Durst hired new representatives, those representatives found that UMG had been withholding as much as $200 million in royalties owed for Limp Bizkit record sales during the height of their career as well as royalties from Durst’s label, Flawless Records, a subsidiary of UMG. When Durst’s new representation contacted the label, UMG found over $1 million in royalties that they “failed to alert” Durst about, which is a pretty glaring oversight. But the suit alleges that that’s a small fraction of what UMG owes Durst and Limp Bizkit and he’s seeking the $200 million and the rights to his own recordings. But now, UMG is motioning to dismiss the suit, and their reasoning is…strange, to say the least.
According to Rolling Stone, UMG made their first response to Durst’s suit last week claiming that the entire lawsuit was “based on a fallacy” and motioned for the suit to be dismissed. In the motion, the company said that:
“Plaintiffs’ entire narrative that UMG tried to conceal royalties is a fiction.”
UMG is claiming that the entire dispute started when one of the company’s directors reached out to Limp Bizkit’s management to set up a vendor profile so the band could receive their royalties and the business manager at UMG had told the director that most members of the band had sold off their royalty shares. Over a year later, the business manager sent a follow-up email clarifying that he meant publishing royalties, not the recordings. UMG claims that this email communication will “eviscerate” the fraud claims, which is a bold word to use when you’re not making any sense.
I admit that I’m not a lawyer and maybe this is all going over my head, but I don’t see how a confusion over whether the band still had their publishing royalties or the rights to their recording somehow proves that UMG didn’t short Durst and his bandmates $200 million. It’s like if Marilyn Manson tried to tell us that Evan Rachel Wood’s accusations against him are invalid because she was born on a Monday. It doesn’t really seem to have anything to do with the allegations made against UMG. And, if the whole thing boiled down to such a simple misunderstanding, it would seem odd that Durst’s lawyers and management would have missed something so obvious. Something tells me that this will not be the last we hear about this lawsuit.
