The three major music publishers - Sony Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing and Warner Chappell - as well as BMG have put their differences aside and clubbed together to buy their way into the ongoing legal battle around termination rights in the US.
They have together bought a stake in ‘Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)’, the Cyril E Vetter song that was subject to a court battle that dramatically changed the rules around the termination right in US copyright law in a way that favours songwriters and therefore disadvantages publishers.
The four music companies are making no attempt to hide their motivation for why they have bought a stake in the song from indie publisher Resnik Music Group. In a court filing last week they say that they “have made this acquisition for purposes of filing a petition for a writ of certiorari in this matter”.
Which means they want to ask the US Supreme Court to review the case, with the hope that it will ultimately overturn the landmark termination rights judgement.
Vetter’s lawyer Tim Kappel says “it’s not a shock that legacy music publishers are concerned” about this legal battle, and the unusual tactics they are employing to join together and take over the litigation from Resnik is simply “a reflection of what we already knew about the importance of this case”.
With the three majors and BMG all now officially involved, the publishers will presumably have lots of budget to throw at this big legal battle as they seek to reverse the previous ruling and restore the more publisher-friendly interpretation of the termination right.
But the intentions of the publishers are “irrelevant”, Kappel adds, “it’s only the intentions of Congress that matter”. And Congress, he reckons, always intended the termination right to be interpreted in the writer-friendly way that was applied by the judge in this case. Therefore, “we continue to believe that Cyril has the stronger arguments no matter who we’re up against”.
The US termination right says that a creator who transfers ownership of a copyright to a third party, like a music publisher, has a one-time opportunity to terminate that transfer and reclaim the copyright after 35 years - or 56 years with works created before 1978, like ‘Double Shot’.
Vetter, who co-wrote ‘Double Shot’ with Don Smith, exercised his termination right in 2019 to reclaim the portion of the song’s copyright owned by Resnik.
However, to date it has been assumed that the termination only applies within the US, meaning even if a songwriter terminates an old publishing deal, the publisher still owns the copyright in the rest of the world, and therefore continues to share in the international income the copyright generates.
That interpretation of the termination right obviously benefits the publisher and, in this case, would mean Resnik still controlled its share of the ‘Double Shot’ copyright everywhere outside the US. Which was relevant when TV company ABC wanted to buy a licence so that it could use the song in a programme that would be broadcast worldwide.
However, according to Vetter and his legal team, that long-held interpretation of the termination right is wrong, and was not what Congress intended when it inserted the termination right into copyright law in the first place. In fact Vetter should be able to reclaim the copyright in his song worldwide.
Which would mean he - and only he - owns the copyright in ‘Double Shot’ globally, and only he can sell a licence to ABC to use the song in their TV show around the world. Inconveniently for the majors and BMG, it also technically means that Resnick doesn’t actually possess a share in the song’s copyright to sell to them so that they can join the case.
Legally speaking, this dispute centred partly on how a particular line of the US Copyright Act is interpreted, and partly on how the Berne Convention that connects copyright systems around the world actually works. That is all quite complicated, and is something we explained in more detail when reporting on the case back in February 2025.
What matters is that both the district court where the action was first filed and then the Fifth Circuit Appeals Court sided with Vetter, setting a precedent which - unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise and overturns it - will dramatically change how the termination right works.
It basically allows songwriters to reclaim their copyrights globally, depriving publishers of lots of international income in a music copyright market that is more global than ever before.
Which is why the publishing businesses of Universal, Sony and Warner, as well as BMG, would really like the opportunity to try to convince the Supreme Court that the other courts got it wrong.
The four publishers want the district court that originally considered the case to recognise that they, rather than Resnik, are now the defendants in this case. Despite the fact that very court previously made a ruling that means Resnik doesn’t actually own the rights that the majors and BMG have bought to enter the case.
But assuming the publishers nevertheless convince the court that they do now own rights in ‘Double Shot’ - or at least they own the ongoing dispute over those rights - they plan to ask for an extension of a current 13 Apr deadline to file that ‘writ of certiorari’ with the Supreme Court.