Linkin Park Seek to Dismiss Former Bassist’s Unpaid Royalties Lawsuit

Five months after one of Linkin Park’s former bassists sued the band over unpaid royalties connected to their Hybrid Theory reissue, the group’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

In the motion filed Tuesday, Linkin Park’s legal team cited a number of “defects” with Kyle Christner’s lawsuit, most notably that the statute of limitations had “long since passed,” Billboard reports.

Christner served as Linkin Park’s bassist for less than a year in 1999, and while he didn’t feature on 2000’s 12-times-platinum Hybrid Theory, some of his contributions from the era featured on the 20th anniversary reissue of the album — specifically three demos and the six-song Hybrid Theory EP.

However, when Christner went back and reviewed all the archival material in the box set, he concluded his work appears on “more than twenty songs,” the lawsuit stated. Christner said he reported his findings back to the management company, Machine Shop Entertainment, but the director who initially reached out “went dark” after acknowledging receipt of his letter.

“Plaintiff claims that defendants… owe him money because he was a member of the band for, at most, eight months, 25 years ago, and was not paid for his ‘contributions’,” Linkin Park’s lawyer Edwin F. McPherson wrote in the motion to dismiss. “He asserts three claims, each of which fails.”

Linkin Park members Mike Shinoda — who praised Christner’s work on the reissue track “Could Have Been” during a 2020 livestream — Rob Bourdon, Brad Delson, and Joseph Hahn are listed as defendants alongside Machine Shop and Warner Records.

Under copyright law, Linkin Park’s lawyers claim, Christner had three years to file a claim regarding his work on Hybrid Theory. That deadline passed long ago in regards to the 2000 album itself. However, if even just counting the Christner-featured tracks unearthed on the reissue, the 20th anniversary edition of Hybrid Theory was released in October 2020, while Christner’s lawsuit was filed in November 2023, missing that three-year window by a month, as the motion to dismiss points out. 

From Rolling Stone US.