Products You May Like
Back in June, Soundgarden, Steve Earle, and Hole, as well as the estate of Tupac Shakur and a former wife of Tom Petty sued Universal Music Group for over $100 million in damages. The suit was in response to The New York Times Magazine’s bombshell investigation of a 2008 fire at UMG’s Hollywood warehouse that left hundreds of thousands of master tapes destroyed.
Hole dropped out of the suit in August “solely based on UMG’s written assurances to Plaintiffs’ counsel that no Hole master recordings were lost in the fire.” Now, two more plaintiffs—Soundgarden and the estate of Tupac Shakur—have pulled out of the class action suit, according to court documents viewed by Pitchfork. No reason was given in the legal filing for their decision.
The lawsuit alleges that the artists were never informed by UMG that their masters had been damaged in the fire, and that UMG had breached its contractual obligations to artists by failing to protect their masters.
When reached by Pitchfork, a representative for UMG offered no comment. Pitchfork has reached out to representatives for Soundgarden and the estate of Tupac Shakur.