{"id":6951,"date":"2025-07-18T03:54:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T03:54:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/umg-says-duo-cant-own-recordings\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T03:54:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T03:54:05","slug":"umg-says-duo-cant-own-recordings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/umg-says-duo-cant-own-recordings\/","title":{"rendered":"UMG Says Duo Can’t Own Recordings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tU<\/span>niversal Music Group (UMG) is firing back at Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s attempt to win back control of their masters, saying the claims are legally invalid as the hip-hop duo was not actually a party to its 1986 record deal.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe argument comes in UMG\u2019s Thursday (July 17) motion to dismiss the lawsuit brought by Salt-N-Pepa back in May. Cheryl \u201cSalt\u201d James and Sandra \u201cPepa\u201d Denton claimed the major label is refusing to honor their so-called \u201ctermination rights,\u201d a provision of copyright law that 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\u2019s lawyers argue that Salt-N-Pepa don\u2019t have any termination rights because James and Denton were not the ones who signed away their masters for the 1980s and 1990s albums Hot, Cool & Vicious<\/em>, A Salt With A Deadly Pepa<\/em>, Blacks\u2019 Magic<\/em>, A Blitz of Salt-N-Pepa Hits<\/em> and Very Necessary<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe music giant says Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s 1986 distribution deal with Next Plateau Records \u2014 now a part of UMG \u2014 was actually signed by the duo\u2019s producer, Hurby \u201cLuv Bug\u201d Azor.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere was never an intention to effectuate a copyright transfer from plaintiffs. The only transfer is made by producer as the copyright owner to Next Plateau,\u201d the motion reads. \u201cBecause that is not a grant subject to termination by plaintiffs, plaintiff\u2019s declaratory judgment claim as to the validity of their termination of purported grants concerning the sound recordings should be dismissed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe motion points out that in a landmark class action lawsuit brought against UMG over termination rights, a federal judge specifically determined that these rights only apply to record deals executed by artists. Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s lawyers worked on the class action, notes UMG, but have \u201capparently chosen to ignore that decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG also says termination rights don\u2019t apply to derivative works, including remixes. Several of the recordings cited in Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s lawsuits are remixes, including versions of the hits \u201cPush It\u201d and \u201cExpression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAccordingly, even if plaintiffs had executed grants of copyright rights in the sound recordings that are the subject of the notice, and even assuming that the notice were otherwise valid, UMG\u2019s ownership interest in the derivative \u2018remixed\u2019 sound recordings would not be subject to termination,\u201d write UMG\u2019s lawyers.<\/p>\n

\n\tUMG wants the entire lawsuit tossed out and says it shouldn\u2019t have to begin the discovery process until a judge rules on its motion. Gathering evidence for Salt-N-Pepa would be time-consuming and expensive, says the label, \u201cbecause the relevant events trace back many decades, including various contractual arrangements dating back almost forty years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReached for comment on the dismissal motion Thursday, a spokesperson for Salt-N-Pepa says, \u201cThe Copyright Act was designed to give artists the chance to reclaim ownership of their work, which is precisely what Salt-N-Pepa have been attempting to do, and UMG continues to resist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cUMG\u2019s response is just what we expected \u2014 an effort to avoid addressing the core issues facing Salt-N-Pepa and so many other artists in these circumstances,\u201d adds the spokesperson. \u201cBut we remain confident that the facts and the law are on our side.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis story was updated on July 17 at 9:58 p.m. ET to include a statement from Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s reps.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Universal Music Group (UMG) is firing back at Salt-N-Pepa\u2019s attempt to win back control of their masters, saying the claims are legally invalid as the hip-hop duo was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6952,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3134,6477,1109],"class_list":["post-6951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-duo","tag-recordings","tag-umg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6951","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=6951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}