Legendary funk musician George Clinton has sued Universal Music Group‘s UMG Recordings, alleging the label has withheld 100% of his royalties across every one of his royalty accounts for more than three years.
The complaint, filed on Friday (May 15) in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, accuses UMG of breach of contract and claims the label is sitting on more than $1.1 million in frozen royalties belonging to Clinton.
The 20-page filing, obtained by MBW, can be read in full here.
Clinton, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame-inducted bandleader, songwriter, and frontman of Parliament–Funkadelic, alleges that UMG has used a third-party copyright dispute as a pretext to freeze his entire income from recorded music, including royalties from recordings that have no connection to the dispute in question.
The third-party case at the center of the complaint is the Estate of George Bernard Worrell, Jr. v. Thang, Inc. and George Clinton, in which the estate of the late Parliament-Funkadelic keyboardist Bernie Worrell sought a declaration that Worrell was a 50% co-owner of certain sound recordings.
UMG was originally named in that lawsuit but was dismissed from the case on October 20, 2023.
On September 4, 2025, a federal judge in Detroit granted summary judgment in Clinton’s favor, ruling that all of the estate’s claims were time-barred under the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations.
Despite these developments, the complaint alleges, UMG continues to freeze 100% of royalties from at least 12 separate Clinton-related royalty accounts spanning multiple labels.
“This is a straightforward breach of contract case arising from UMG’s decision to withhold 100% of royalties payable to Plaintiff under governing recording agreements based on a third-party lawsuit to which UMG is not a party, in which UMG faces no claim, in which UMG could incur no liability, and in which the third party has now lost on summary judgment,” the complaint states.
The estate has since appealed the summary judgment ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, according to the complaint.
The filing identifies specific UMG accounts where royalties have been frozen.
As of the quarterly statements for the period ended December 31, 2025, royalty account No. 20106304 (“Parliament”) shows a payee amount due of $996,123.03; account No. 95603068 (“Clinton, George/Clijo Prod”) shows a payee amount due in excess of $99,000; and account No. 95601068 (“Red Hot Chili/George Clinton”) shows a net payee amount due of $29,543.22.
The complaint notes that UMG has frozen royalties from Clinton’s independent production work for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, recordings the Worrell estate has never claimed any interest in.
“The Estate has never claimed any interest in those recordings, which were created decades after Bernie Worrell’s involvement with Parliament, on a different label, with different artists, and under a different contract,” the filing reads.
At the heart of the dispute is Paragraph 15 of a 1980 Artist’s Production Agreement between P-Funk, Inc. and Casablanca Record and Filmworks, Inc., to which UMG is the successor-in-interest.
That provision allows UMG to withhold from royalties “such amounts as may be reasonably necessary, in Company’s judgment, to protect Company and as are related to the potential liability in issue.”
Clinton’s complaint argues that UMG faces no “potential liability” in the Worrell litigation, having been dismissed as a defendant more than two and a half years ago.
“UMG faces no claim, no demand, no judgment, and no potential liability in the Worrell Litigation,” the complaint states.
“The amount UMG is withholding bears no rational relationship to any ‘potential liability in issue.’ Indeed, no such potential liability exists at all.”
The complaint further argues that even under the estate’s most aggressive theory of recovery, the claim was “necessarily limited to a 50% co-ownership interest in recordings made during a single calendar year (1976), under a putative agreement that has been declared unenforceable.”
“Yet UMG is withholding 100% of royalties from every Clinton account spanning the entirety of Clinton’s recording career, both before and after 1976,” the filing reads.
Clinton alleges the withholding has been “financially crippling,” describing the frozen royalties as his “primary source of income.”
According to the complaint, Clinton’s counsel has “repeatedly demanded” that UMG release the withheld royalties in communications between December 2023 and March 2026.
UMG “has delayed, equivocated, and provided misleading assertions that it was ‘considering’ releasing a portion of the withheld royalties,” the complaint alleges.
The lawsuit brings three counts: breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and an equitable accounting.
Clinton is seeking compensatory damages in excess of $1.1 million, the release of all withheld royalties, a full accounting across all affected accounts, an injunction preventing further withholding, and attorneys’ fees.
Clinton, who has performed professionally since the 1960s, filed a separate lawsuit against music executive Armen Boladian and his company Bridgeport Music last year, alleging a “decades-long scheme to defraud” him of royalties and copyright ownership, as previously reported by MBW.
Clinton is represented by James P. Allen, Sr. and Peter E. Doyle of Schenk & Bruetsch PLC in Detroit, and Erik W. Scharf of The Scharf Appellate Group in Miami.
MBW has reached out to UMG for comment.Music Business Worldwide
