Salt-N-Pepa v. Universal Music Group: The Battle Over Copyright Termination Rights in Music

In November 2025, the legendary hip-hop duo Salt-N-Pepa will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Following Missy Elliot’s groundbreaking induction in 2024, Salt-N-Peppa will be first female rap group to reach the Hall. The group is also seeking to break new ground on the legal front. On May 19, 2025, Cheryl James and Sandra Denton, professionally known as “Salt-N-Pepa,” filed a lawsuit against Universal Music Group, alleging the label is violating copyright law by refusing to transfer the rights to their master recordings. The dispute centers on their iconic tracks including 1993’s “Shoop” and 1987’s “Push It,” marking another chapter in the ongoing battle between artists and record labels over termination rights under U.S. copyright law.

This case reflects a common pattern of behavior displayed by record labels when confronting artists’ attempts to exercise their copyright termination rights. According to the plaintiffs Universal Music improperly refused to acknowledge or honor the artist’s termination notices. From the label’s perspective, sound recordings constitute “works made for hire” and are therefore exempt from termination provisions. For attorneys representing artists or labels, this lawsuit could provide crucial clarity on issues that have remained largely unsettled in the courts.

Under the Copyright Act of 1976, Section 203 grants authors and their heirs the right to terminate transfers of copyright ownership after 35 years. This provision was designed to protect creators from disadvantageous deals made early in their careers when they had little bargaining power.

The termination right applies to works created on or after January 1, 1978, allowing authors to reclaim their copyrights by providing proper notice between two and 10 years before the termination becomes effective. However, this right contains a significant exception: it does not apply to “works made for hire.”

Under Section 101 of the Copyright Act, a “work made for hire” is defined in two ways:

1. Employee work: A work prepared by an employee within the scope of employment
2. Commissioned work: A work specially ordered or commissioned for use in one of nine enumerated categories, provided the parties expressly agree in writing that the work shall be considered a work made for hire.

The nine categories include contributions to collective works, parts of motion pictures, translations, compilations, instructional texts, tests, answer materials, atlases, and supplementary works. Notably, sound recordings are not among these enumerated categories.

Despite this inconvenient truth, major record labels consistently argue that the sound recordings produced by their artists should be considered “work for hire” by shoehorning those recordings into the categories of “compilations” or “contributions to collective works.” Labels argue that that albums containing multiple songs constitute compilations under Section 101, which defines a compilation as “a work formed by the collection and assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.” But is this a fair categorization? Artists like Salt-n-Pepa would argue that when they recorded “Shoop” or “Push It,” they were creating complete musical works, not contributing elements to a label-conceived compilation. The creative genesis lies with the artists, not the label’s organizational decisions. Unlike true contributions to collective works (such as articles in a magazine), songs don’t lose their independent character when included in an album.

But all of this is just conjecture. The courts have yet to definitively rule on whether sound recordings can be works for hire under the current statutory framework. Most previous cases have been resolved through settlements,¹ leaving the legal landscape murky for both artists and labels. A definitive ruling could reshape the music industry’s approach to copyright ownership and potentially trigger a wave of similar termination actions.

Ironically, while artists fight for termination rights against labels, many of these same artists routinely ask session musicians to sign work for hire agreements during the production process for their contributions to the resulting recordings. If termination rights become more broadly recognized for sound recordings, these artists might find themselves facing similar challenges from musicians seeking to reclaim rights to their session performances 35 years later.

This “be careful what you wish for” scenario illustrates the interconnected nature of copyright ownership in collaborative creative works. A ruling favorable to artists in their disputes with labels could establish precedents that affect their own relationships with backup musicians, producers, and other contributors. We will be closely watching this case for updates.

[1] In 2022, Warner Music Group settled a lawsuit filed by Dwight Yoakam based on the label’s failure to adhere to Yoakam’s termination notice. In 2023, Warner Music Group settled a lawsuit filed by The Jesus and Mary Chain seeking damages in connection with Warner’s alleged failure to honor a termination notice. In 2024, Sony Music settled a lawsuit by New York Dolls singer David Johansen seeking to enforce copyright termination rights.