Louisiana Court Holds Copyright Termination Recaptures Worldwide Rights

On January 29, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana issued a summary judgment ruling in the case Cyril E. Vetter, et al v. Robert Resnik, which revisits fundamental questions of copyright law and, if upheld, could extend the geographical scope of U.S. termination rights to foreign territories.

The Background: The dispute involves the musical composition “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” authored by Don Smith and Cyril Vetter in 1962. In 1963, for the price of one dollar, Vetter and Smith assigned their worldwide interests in the song to Windsong Music Publishers, Inc., which obtained a U.S. copyright registration for the song in 1966. Smith died in 1972 and, in 1994, the original copyright term ended. Both Smith’s heirs and Vetter obtained a renewal copyright. According to the Copyright Act for pre-1972 works, Vetter’s share of the renewal copyright went to Windsong because he was alive when the renewal rights vested, while Smith’s heirs retained their renewal copyright since Smith had passed away in 1972 before the renewal rights vested in 1994. Vetter later purchased Smith’s heirs’ renewal copyright interest.

In 2019, Windsong sold its assets to Robert Resnik. That same year, Vetter issued a termination notice under Section 304 of the Copyright Act to Windsong to recapture his rights in his share of the musical composition. The termination notice provided an effective date of May 3, 2022. Afterward, the television network ABC approached Vetter to license the composition for potential use in a television show to be broadcast worldwide. Upon receiving a quote from Vetter, ABC informed him that Resnik claimed a 25% ownership interest in the song, as Windsong asserted that it still held international rights despite the U.S. termination.

The Lawsuit: As a result of Resnik’s claim of rights, Vetter filed a lawsuit seeking a declaratory judgment that he owns 100% of the musical composition worldwide on the premise that the termination notice that went into effect in 2022 included international rights. He conceded that he advanced a “novel” theory of recovery, and based much of his argument on the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works which, the Court observed, “provides that the law of the country where protection is claimed defines what rights are protected, the scope of the protection, and the available remedies,” and “the treaty does not supply a choice of law rule for determining ownership.” Accordingly, Vetter argued that if the Berne Convention requires signatory countries to recognize the validity of copyrights originating in other signatory countries, then the same should apply to recognizing the validity of copyright terminations, including the scope of the rights being recaptured pursuant to the same.

Resnik filed a motion to dismiss, contending as a matter of law that U.S. termination rights do not terminate the grants as to international copyrights, but the Court denied that motion on July 12, 2024, distinguishing a previous decision of the Central District of California that limited such termination to U.S. rights only. Vetter subsequently filed a motion for summary judgment, which the court granted on January 29, 2025, declaring Vetter to be the sole owner of the worldwide rights in the song.

The Court referred back to its reasoning on the motion to dismiss, finding that Vetter had advanced a legally plausible claim that the right to exploit the musical composition copyrighted in the U.S. “arises under” the Copyright Act, and that this right is recognized and protected by the domestic laws of other Berne Convention signatories. Accordingly, it concluded that because “the ‘terminated grant’ was the Initial Assignment of worldwide rights from Vetter to Windsong[, i]t plausibly and logically follows that a termination of a worldwide grant results in the recapture of worldwide rights.”

What You Need to Know: The ruling—from a jurisdiction not traditionally known as a hub for copyright activity—is already prompting discussion and some breathless headlines, as it challenges a conventional understanding that copyright terminations effected under U.S. law do not disturb rights of copyright outside the United States for the works at issue. And it raises fundamental questions about how such matters should be framed: i.e., to the extent rights of copyright are protected by a particular country (some of which have their own reversionary laws that differ as to timing and eligibility), do they only subsist country by country (subject to the laws of each country), or once recognized by said countries, is there in effect a single worldwide right of copyright that is recognized and respected via the Berne Convention that can then be terminated in its entirety via these provisions of U.S. Copyright Act? And to the extent this case was predicated on the specific situation involving U.S. authors contracting in the U.S., could that same logic raise questions over the ability of foreign authors to avail themselves of the U.S. termination provisions or U.S. authors to avail themselves of the reversionary laws of other countries? These are foundational copyright questions that can have major implications for termination efforts.

Then, what does Section 304(c)(6)(E) mean, when it states that “termination of a grant under this subsection affects only those rights covered by the grant that arise under this title, and in no way affects rights arising under any other Federal, State, or foreign laws.”? In Vetter, Chief Judge Shelly Dick distinguished other cases that relied on this statutory language to cabin terminations to U.S. rights, specifically declining to follow the Central District of California’s 2008 ruling in Siegel v. Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc.

Although this case does not have precedential effect at this time (except for the litigants to this case), other plaintiffs who have terminated their copyright grants in the U.S. may seek to leverage this ruling to terminate their grants of foreign copyrights. And those who are currently considering or have recently sent termination notices may want to consider the impacts that Vetter will have on the scope of their rights and ongoing licenses (including in the context of catalog sales), and whether the language of their termination notices is inclusive enough to apply to grants of foreign rights. As this is a developing case likely to attract attention on appeal, stakeholders in the music industry should stay informed of related developments.