In the ongoing legal battle over the 2008 Universal archive fire, the major label has now attempted to pick off one more of the artists named on the class action lawsuit that seeks damages in relation to the blaze, that being Soundgarden.
Despite the lawsuit's claim that Universal has never informed any artists of the status of their masters after the fire, the company says it told Soundgarden about said statuses four whole years ago. To that end, in a legal filing yesterday Universal gave Soundgarden a 24 hour deadline to withdraw from the case. If they do not, it says, it will ask the court to order that the band reimburse the label's attorney fees and other costs incurred defending the lawsuit.
Soundgarden, however, are having none of it, saying that they're not about to start accepting the label's claims about their masters at "face value" at this stage.
The band are part of a group of Universal-signed acts who went legal after the publication of two New York Times articles earlier this year all about the 2008 fire. In them, the newspaper claimed that there had been a cover-up at the music firm over the extent of the damage caused by that fire more than a decade ago.
Posted on: 29/08/2019Categories: News from CMU Online
