Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst during a live performance. Photo Credit: CarterSterling
Limp Bizkit’s far-reaching lawsuit against Universal Music isn’t going particularly well, as the presiding judge has dismissed several components of the over $200 million complaint.
The court recently made this partial dismissal official, after Limp Bizkit, frontman Fred Durst, and his Flawless Records submitted the initial action in October 2024. We covered the 60-page complaint, alleging millions in unpaid royalties and seeking to nix the underlying agreements, in detail.
Just to recap, Durst hired a new team in April 2024, and they uncovered millions in allegedly missing royalty payments as well as purportedly below-board recoupment practices across multiple deals (including an Interscope-Flawless JV).
Consequently, owing in part to the timing of the relevant royalty payments, the plaintiffs moved to axe all the agreements in question and assume ownership of the involved recordings.
Unsurprisingly, that didn’t sit right with Universal Music, which fired back in November 2024 with a firmly worded dismissal motion. In short, the major said it hadn’t violated the terms of the appropriate agreements, which allegedly allowed (and allow) for cross-account recoupments.
Running with the point, there definitely hadn’t been a “total failure” on UMG’s part to honor the terms of the contracts – including because of the multimillion-dollar advances it’d coughed up, per the company.
As a result, Limp Bizkit’s push to invalidate the contracts should be rejected, per UMG, which therefore moved to dismiss the closely related copyright infringement allegations as well.
And as initially highlighted, the presiding judge has sided with the defendant label, specifically by tossing Limp Bizkit’s contract-recission, copyright infringement, and declaratory relief claims.
“The Court therefore concludes that Plaintiffs have not plausibly alleged the type of ‘substantial’ or ‘total failure’ in the performance of the contracts that could support rescission of the parties’ agreements,” Judge Percy Anderson summed up after pointing to the mentioned advances and more.
(That UMG has admitted being late in making some of the payments – and failing to remedy the situation within a 30-day post-notification window – also isn’t grounds for rescindment, per the court.)
Similarly, the judge rejected the other components of the plaintiffs’ rescindment argument, namely that they’d been fraudulently induced into signing the deals because UMG didn’t intend to make the outlined royalty payments.
But for now, the court opted against reviewing the remaining allegations; the Limp Bizkit plaintiffs have until February 3rd to submit an amended action.