later clarified UMG informed her none of her tapes had been lost, including the unreleased album. Several other artists also contradicted The Times' reporting, stating their recordings had not been affected by the fire. Nirvana said on Twitter that all of their tapes are safe as did Sheryl Crow, with UMG confirming, "masters for all of Crow's A&M-released albums survived the fire." The Canadian band the Tragically Hip reported on their website that The New York Times incorrectly listed them among those who had lost tapes in the fire. Drummer Johnny Fay wrote that all of their material had been relocated to Canada in 2001. Beck posted that his losses were minimal and that none of his master recordings had been lost. Smash Mouth confirmed their recordings "were not destroyed in that very unfortunate fire". Within two weeks of Rosen's article, five plaintiffs (singer-songwriter Steve Earle, the estates of the late Tupac Shakur and Tom Petty, and the bands Hole and Soundgarden) filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against UMG. In their complaint, the plaintiffs claimed UMG never told artists about the effects of the fire and had breached their contracts by failing to properly secure its master tape collection. They further alleged that UMG did not share insurance or legal payouts received as a result of the fire. Every plaintiff except for Tom Petty's ex-wife dropped out of the complaint after UMG provided artists with a list of their recordings in the company's archives. On July 17, Universal moved to dismiss the class-action lawsuit. On August 16, 2019, Hole dropped out of the lawsuit after UMG assured them that the band's masters were not affected by the fire. Slightly over a month later, UMG also claimed that Shakur, Earle, and Petty did not lose their masters in the fire, and that an investigation with Soundgarden was still going on. Shakur and Earle would also later drop out as plaintiffs after learning their master tapes hadn't been harmed. Five days later, Universal demanded Soundgarden drop the suit, which the label had also moved to dismiss, citing documentary proof that the label had informed the band about the lost masters in 2015 and accusing their lawyer of "[failing] to conduct presuit diligence in your rush to be the first to file." The surviving band members declined. "Their arbitrary deadlines have zero force or effect," Howard King, their attorney, told Rolling