By Blake Brittain
WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) – The US Supreme Court rejected on Monday a challenge by a group of music labels to a judicial decision that said a law allowing creators to terminate copyright grants and reclaim their rights applies globally and not only to US copyrights.
The justices upheld a lower court’s ruling that dealt a blow to music labels BMG, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music. The New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with songwriter Cyril Vetter in the dispute involving a 1960s rock ‘n’ roll hit he co-wrote with the late Donald Smith called “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love).”
This prompted an appeal to the Supreme Court by the publishing arms of the four labels. The labels had argued that the 5th Circuit ruling in favor of Vetter, if allowed to stand, would cause chaos and threaten agreements worth billions of dollars.
Four of the court’s nine justices did not participate in consideration of the appeal by the music labels. They did not provide a rationale for their recusal. The remaining justices determined that the case could not be resolved in the coming term, resulting in the lower court’s ruling being upheld.
“Double Shot” was written by Vetter and Smith in 1962, and most famously was recorded by the rock band the Swingin’ Medallions in 1966. Vetter and Smith transferred their copyrights in the song to Windsong Music Publishers in 1963. Smith died in a plane crash in 1972.
A provision of US copyright law allows artists to terminate copyright transfer agreements and reclaim their rights after decades under certain circumstances. For example, copyright grants from before 1978 must be at least 56 years old, and the copyrighted work cannot have been written for hire. The law was meant to address the lack of bargaining power for unknown artists who signed away rights to their works that later became more valuable.
Invoking this law, Vetter sent a copyright termination notice to Windsong in 2019, with an effective date of 2022. Resnik Music Group bought Windsong later in 2019.
Vetter sued Resnik in federal court in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2023, alleging that Resnik “refuses to relinquish claim to the ‘Double Shot’ copyright outside of the United States and purports to retain the exclusive right to exploit the work in all foreign countries.”
US District Judge Shelly Dick ruled in favor of Vetter in 2025 and declared him the “sole owner of all right, title and interest throughout the world” of his reclaimed “Double Shot” copyright. The 5th Circuit affirmed Dick’s ruling in January.
The music labels involved in the current case acquired Resnik’s copyright interest in “Double Shot” after the 5th Circuit’s decision. They told the Supreme Court in a filing that the ruling by the lower courts that US law on copyright termination applies to foreign copyrights “unsettled 50 years of industry practice” and “sharply diverges from the statutory text and settled understandings.”
Vetter’s lawyers responded in a filing that the concerns voiced by the labels were overblown.
(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; Editing by Will Dunham)
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