5 Famous Band and Label Disputes

Lars Ulrich of Metallica. Ethan Miller, Getty Images

Starting off with the most public dispute in recent times: Metallica vs. Napster. Back in 2000, Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich found out that Napster was streaming the band's entire catalog for free on their website. Lars then proceeded to take Napster to court for copyright infringement, among other and more confusing things.

The outcome was that Napster had to put a filter on their streaming system that deleted any songs from artists that did not want their music shared. Metallica came out on top in this one.

Aaron Fink (L) and Benjamin Burnley (R) in 2004. Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images

This one is a little more complicated, but long story short: frontman Benjamin Burnley fired two of his band members; the two members (Aaron Fincke and Mark Klepaski) are fighting this; Hollywood records is still trying to sell the Breaking Benjamin records without paying the band.

Kind of a mish-mash right? There is a lot going on, but it all boils down to the fact that the band Breaking Benjamin doesn't own the trademark for the term and name 'Breaking Benjamin.' This means that anyone can make Breaking Benjamin CDs, t-shirts, concert posters and sell them without paying a royalty. Breaking Benjamin gets none of the money, and Hollywood (their record company) gets all of it. This happened some time during 2009 and 2010.

The band was making no money, and there was some confusing terms between the two fired band members and Benjamin Burnley. Everyone ended up leaving eventually. Currently, Breaking Benjamin is on hiatus, and only consists of frontman Benjamin Burnley.

Chester Bennington of Linkin Park. Michael Kovac, Getty Images

This one is more of an argument than anything. Warner Music Group, at the time (around 2004 and 2005) the band's label, asked Linkin Park to perform at the New York Stock Exchange to commemorate Warner Music's public stock offering.

Linkin Park doesn't seem like the kind of band that would want to perform in front of a bunch of white-collar stock-trader types. They let Warner Music know that, and then it blew up into a finger-pointing fiasco. The problem came from Linkin Park still being under contract with Warner; the band still needed to release 4 albums under the company.

Because of all this, Linkin Park politely (or not so) requested to leave Warner Music.

Tom Morello. Jerod Harris, Getty Images

Rage Against the Machine has been so forward with their political activism and social agenda that it has it's own Wikipedia page. They haven't had a dispute with their record label per-se; but they are very outspoken about many things.

Tom Morello, lead guitarist and activist, was quoted saying that the choice to join the American workforce (mostly subservient roles) leads to you not having any control.

"The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don't care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve."

He has been said to be a hypocrite, being a multi-million dollar musician who comes from the Sony record label Epic. If you ever need to get into an argument about the social agenda, Rage Against the Machine would be a good group to talk to.

Trent Reznor in 2009. Michael Buckner, Getty Images

Trent Reznor, frontman and lead singer / songwriter for Nine Inch Nails, is notorious for being outspoken against the music industry. He is very much concerned with artistic freedom, and because of that, goes after the people that try to hinder him.

NIN was first signed to TVT Records in 1990. However, they were apparently interfering with his intellectual property and ordering him to make another record. Reznor was against the idea, and started to record new music using pseudonyms to avoid recording with TVT. TVT eventually let NIN sign with Interscope Records, after it became clear that Reznor was not planning on releasing another album under them.

Later, he got in a dispute with Universal Music Group, the parent company of Interscope Records. He was upset about the pricing that the company was selling his music for. He later went on a rant at a concert, telling people to steal his music instead of buying it from Universal.

There is more to this man, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.