Majors Buy Their Way Into a Landmark Copyright Fight

April 4

	The three major music publishers (Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music) and BMG are so determined to overturn a creator-friendly copyright ruling that they literally bought the song at the centre of the dispute — just so they could take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court themselves. In January 2026, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals handed songwriter Cyril Vetter a significant victory. The court ruled that when Vetter exercised his termination rights under U.S. copyright law over his 1963 hit Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love), he reclaimed the song’s rights worldwide, not just in the United States. That decision upended decades of industry assumption that termination only restores American rights, while foreign rights remain with the publisher under local copyright laws. The original defendant, small publisher Resnik Music Group, lost the case. Rather than leave the appeal in the hands of a minor player — or risk the precedent standing unchallenged — the publishing arms of Universal, Sony and Warner, together with BMG, stepped in. In March 2026 they acquired Resnik’s stake in the song with the explicit purpose of substituting themselves as defendants and petitioning the Supreme Court. In court filings they made no secret of their motivation: they bought the interest specifically “for purposes of filing a petition for a writ of certiorari.” The majors argue that the Fifth Circuit’s ruling “departs from bedrock copyright law,” favours a “fringe” interpretation, and will unleash “chaos” across the industry if allowed to stand. They claim it unsettles fifty years of established practice around international licensing, catalogue valuations and long-term rights deals. Songwriters and their advocates see it very differently. They argue the law was always intended to let creators fully reclaim what they originally granted, and that the Fifth Circuit simply applied the statute as written. A worldwide termination right would give artists significantly more leverage when renegotiating or reclaiming older catalogues. By purchasing their way into the case, the majors have turned a relatively obscure Louisiana dispute into a high-stakes industry battle. The Supreme Court will now decide whether U.S. termination rights stop at the border — or whether songwriters can truly take back global control of their work. The outcome will shape how termination rights function for years to come, and could redraw the balance of power between creators and the companies that have controlled their catalogues for decades. Source: https://completemusicupdate.com