Despite the hip-hop duo’s effort to retake control of master recordings, a judge has thrown out Salt-N-Pepa‘s lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG).
Per Section 203 of the Copyright Act, under which artists can regain ownership of their masters decades after signing away the copyrights, Cheryl ‘Salt’ James and Sandra ‘Pepa’ Denton attempted to exercise their so-called “termination rights.”
After the record company refused the request, the iconic female rappers sued UMG in May, with James telling Good Morning America in August “When you’re an artist, in the beginning, you sign a contract saying that the copyrights will revert back to you after 35 years.” “And we’ve done all the things legally to get our copyrights back. But they’re just refusing, so we had to sue them.”
Denton and James further claimed UMG had removed some of their biggest hits – including ‘Push It’ – from streaming platforms amid the legal battle.
On Thursday (1.08,) Judge Denise Cote sided with UMG and dismissed the claims entirely as a result of these findings.
UMG maintained that Salt-N-Pepa did not have any termination rights because they didn’t actually sign their 1986 record deal with imprint Next Plateau Records, and in a statement shared with Billboard, a UMG spokesperson said the company is “gratified that the court dismissed this baseless lawsuit”.
Should they choose to do so, Salt-N-Pepa have the right to appeal the dismissal.
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Author: Al Dente
Photo: David Burke