Salt N Pepa have sued Universal Music in the latest dispute over the termination right in US copyright law. The hip hop duo say that when they tried to exercise that right - to take back control of their recordings in the US - the major not only rebuked them, but then removed their music from streaming services.
In their lawsuit they say that rather than honouring the formal ‘notices of termination’ they submitted, Universal “indicated that it will hold their rights hostage” even if that means “tanking the value” of their catalogue and “depriving their fans of access to their work”. To that end, the major removed Salt N Pepa’s music from streaming platforms and “otherwise made it unavailable for commercial exploitation in the US”.
Universal’s “self-interested and heavy-handed tactics may be effective when deployed against lesser known or less commercially successful artists”, the lawsuit declares, before adding that Salt N Pepa “will not tolerate disrespect from UMG”, which has “benefitted greatly” from the duo’s “enormous and immeasurable contributions to the industry as artists, rappers, icons and women - often in the face of immense odds and despite enormous industry pressure”.
The musicians “are not willing to bend to pressure from a record label that … has already profited by an amount of more than one hundred million dollars from their work”, the lawsuit goes on, adding “nor will plaintiffs be easily intimidated by UMG’s misguided attempt to gain leverage by demonetising their catalogue”.
Under US law, creators who transfer - or ‘assign’ to use the legal term - their copyrights to a business partner, like a music publisher or record label, have an opportunity to terminate that assignment after 35 years, allowing them to take back ownership of their rights, albeit only with the US.
The current termination right was added to copyright law in the 1970s, meaning the right started to become enforceable 35 years later in the 2010s. On the songs side of the music business, the termination of old publishing deals has become commonplace, with rights reverting to songwriters providing they complete certain administrative processes, including filing those notices of termination.
However, on the recordings side, some record labels argue that the termination right doesn’t always apply. That’s based on the argument that record deals are often so called ‘work for hire’ deals, which - under US law - makes the label the default owner of the recording copyright. Which means the artist never assigned any rights to the label, meaning there is no assignment to terminate.
That seems to be the argument put forward here by Universal, which is why it has refused to accept Salt N Pepa’s notices of termination and allow the rights in their recordings to revert to the artists.
The lawsuit talks through the deals Salt N Pepa - real names Cheryl James and Sandra Denton - negotiated in the 1980s with their producer Hurby Azor, and the deals his company did with other labels, ultimately London Records - which later became part of Universal Music.
The key argument throughout is that the initial deals James and Denton signed were not work for hire arrangements, which means there was an assignment of rights at the start that can now be terminated.
“Importantly”, the lawsuit states, the original deal signed in 1968 with Azor’s company “contains no language whatsoever to the effect that the sound recordings are ‘works made for hire’ as that term is defined under the Copyright Act of 1976”.
And the later agreement with London Records, signed in 1992, “contains no language whatsoever to the effect that the sound recordings to be distributed thereunder are ‘works made for hire’ as that term is defined under the Copyright Act of 1976”.
All of which means, the duo insist, that their notices of termination were legit and should be respected by Universal. To that end, they want the court to order Universal to transfer the US rights in the Salt N Pepa recordings to the musicians and, of course, to pay lots of damages.