{"id":5926,"date":"2025-05-20T00:10:06","date_gmt":"2025-05-20T00:10:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/salt-n-pepa-file-lawsuit-to-get-music-masters-back-from-record-label\/"},"modified":"2025-05-20T00:10:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-20T00:10:06","slug":"salt-n-pepa-file-lawsuit-to-get-music-masters-back-from-record-label","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/salt-n-pepa-file-lawsuit-to-get-music-masters-back-from-record-label\/","title":{"rendered":"Salt-N-Pepa File Lawsuit to Get Music Masters Back From Record Label"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tSalt-N-Pepa is taking Universal Music Group (UMG) to court to regain control of the duo\u2019s masters, alleging in a new lawsuit that the record label is refusing to honor copyright clawback rights and has instead \u201cpunished\u201d the legendary hip-hop act by removing some of its music from streaming.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit, filed Monday (May 19) in New York federal court, accuses UMG of ignoring Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s so-called \u201ctermination rights\u201d under Section 203 of the Copyright Act. This provision allows artists who sign over their master recordings to regain control of that intellectual property 35 years after a song\u2019s release.<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG owns Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s masters per two contracts that the \u201cPush It\u201d singers, Cheryl \u201cSalt\u201d James and Sandra \u201cPepa\u201d Denton, signed with UMG subsidiaries Next Plateau Records and London Records in 1986 and 1992.<\/p>\n

\n\tSalt-N-Pepa served UMG with a notice of termination rights in 2022, claiming its albums Hot, Cool & Vicious <\/em>(1986) and A Salt With A Deadly Pepa (<\/em>1988) were both up for copyright termination in 2024. The duo also said Blacks\u2019 Magic <\/em>(1990) and A Blitz of Salt-N-Pepa Hits<\/em> (1990) are up in 2025 and that Very Necessary <\/em>(1993) \u2014 which peaked at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 \u2014 is up in 2026 alongside The Greatest Hits<\/em> (1991).<\/p>\n

\n\tBut UMG allegedly rejected Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s notice as \u201cinvalid and ineffective,\u201d claiming termination rights do not apply because the albums were \u201cworks made for hire.\u201d UMG then took Hot, Cool & Vicious <\/em>and A Salt With A Deadly Pepa <\/em>down from streaming, a move Salt-N-Pepa describes as \u201cpunishing\u201d the group by holding their music \u201chostage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUMG has, in fact, halted exploitation of the relevant sound recordings in the United States, thereby effectively demonetizing plaintiffs\u2019 catalogue,\u201d wrote Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s attorneys from the law firm Blank Rome. \u201cThis is an effort by UMG to pressure plaintiffs into giving up on their effort to recoup their rights to their sound recordings. Plaintiffs are not willing to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSalt-N-Pepa\u2019s lawyers say that contrary to what UMG is claiming, nothing in the duo\u2019s original contracts with Next Plateau Records and London Records defined its music as \u201cworks made for hire.\u201d UMG therefore \u201cmakes no legitimate argument against the effectiveness of the notices of termination,\u201d alleges the lawsuit.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUMG appears to take the position that it can unilaterally decide when and\/or if a recording artist is entitled to termination,\u201d wrote the Blank Rome team. \u201cThis is not the law, and UMG does not have this power.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSalt-N-Pepa is asking the court to declare the duo\u2019s termination rights valid and award it control of the masters. The duo is also seeking monetary damages for UMG\u2019s alleged wrongdoing in an amount \u201cbelieved to well exceed $1 million.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawsuit comes just months before Salt-N-Pepa is due to become the second-ever female hip-hop act to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this November. The group\u2019s legal reps say in a statement, \u201cThis fight is about more than contracts \u2014 it\u2019s about legacy, justice and the future of artist ownership.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn a stunning act of retaliation, UMG has pulled their songs from all major platforms in the U.S., punishing them for asserting those rights and silencing decades of culture-shifting work,\u201d the reps add. \u201cLike many artists, they\u2019re challenging a system that profits from their work while denying them control.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tRepresentatives from UMG did not immediately return a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is not the first time UMG has been pulled into court over termination rights. The label and Sony Music Entertainment both inked class action settlements last year over years of closely-watched litigation, in which recording artists sought to win back control of their masters en masse.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndividual artists have also brought one-off lawsuits over termination rights, such as a case that 2 Live Crew won at trial against a small record label last year. The provision also played a significant role in Cher\u2019s royalty battle with Sonny Bono\u2019s widow, in which a judge ruled that termination rights didn\u2019t trump the couple\u2019s divorce settlement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Salt-N-Pepa is taking Universal Music Group (UMG) to court to regain control of the duo\u2019s masters, alleging in a new lawsuit that the record label is refusing to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5927,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1004,1548,303,2693,593,178,6015],"class_list":["post-5926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-file","tag-label","tag-lawsuit","tag-masters","tag-music","tag-record","tag-saltnpepa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}