A group of music publishers have acquired the copyright interest at the center of a landmark termination rights case, and are now seeking to take that case to the US Supreme Court.
Capitol CMG, Warner-Tamerlane Publishing, BMG Rights Management and Essential Music Publishing filed a motion on March 26 in the US Middle District of Louisiana asking the court to substitute them as defendants in place of Robert Resnik, who sold his asserted 25% stake in Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love) to the publishers on March 20.
The publishers said in the filing, which you can read here, that they acquired Resnik’s stake as they seek to ask the Supreme Court to review the Fifth Circuit’s January ruling. The deadline to file that petition is on April 13, 2026, with the deadline to seek an extension falling on April 3.
The case centers on whether songwriters can use US copyright law to reclaim their songs worldwide, not just in the US.
In January, the Fifth Circuit ruled that songwriter Cyril Vetter can take back full global control of Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love), a 1963 rock song, from publisher Resnik Music Group. The three-judge panel affirmed an earlier ruling that Vetter and Vetter Communications Corporation are the sole worldwide owners of the copyright.
As MBW previously reported, under the US Copyright Act of 1976, the original author(s) of a song can “take back” their copyright from a publisher (or whoever they assigned the rights to) after a set period of time. For works written in 1978 or later, that term is 35 years. For works from before 1978, it’s 56 years.
Until now, the general understanding was that US termination rights applied only within the US. Consequently, any international rights remained with the publisher who originally acquired them.
Circuit Judge Carl Stewart rejected that interpretation, finding that the statute’s language — which affects rights that “arise under” the Copyright Act — should apply to all rights granted under US law, regardless of where they’re exploited.
Vetter wrote the song with Donald Smith in 1962 and the pair transferred their rights to Windsong Music Publishers in 1963. After Smith died in a plane crash in 1972, his heirs and Vetter renewed the original copyright when the track’s initial term ended in 1994.
Because Smith died before the renewal term began, his heirs, rather than Windsong, obtained his share of the renewal copyright. Windsong therefore held 50% of the renewal copyright through Vetter’s transfer, with Smith’s heirs holding the remaining 50%.
Vetter Communications acquired Smith’s heirs’ renewal rights in 1996. That same year, Windsong assigned 50% of its stake to Lyresong Music.
In March 2019, Vetter served a termination notice on both Windsong and Lyresong, seeking to reclaim “all authorship/ownership rights originally granted and conveyed by [Vetter] to [Windsong]” under the 1963 assignment, effective May 3, 2022.
Resnik had argued that the termination only affected domestic rights. The Fifth Circuit disagreed, saying “this interpretation is unpersuasive.”
As MBW reported, the ruling drew significant attention from the industry before it was handed down. A coalition of music creator advocacy organizations filed an amicus brief in support of Vetter, with Music Artists Coalition co-founder and board member Susan Genco saying: “This case could set a crucial precedent for creators in today’s global marketplace.”
The amicus brief warned that “[w]ithout worldwide termination, creators remain bound by agreements made when they lacked leverage and before their works’ global value could be understood.”
Separately, the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Music Publishers’ Association pushed back, warning that the lower court’s decision “unsettles the bedrock understanding of foreign exploitation rights against which tens of thousands of agreements respecting recorded music and music publishing copyrights have been drafted, negotiated, and executed.”
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