Photo Credit: Tingey Law
A court ruling by a federal judge in a Louisiana copyright case has rooted chaos in the music industry over how copyrights on music catalogs function.
A federal judge in Louisiana has ruled that US copyright termination rules apply globally, granting songwriter Cyril Vetter full copyright ownership to the 1963 track, “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” from publisher Resnik Music Group. The ruling allows Vetter to reclaim full copyright ownership for all territories worldwide, should the decision stand.
The ruling brings into question “termination rights” under the US Copyright Act of 1976, which enables the original author(s) of a song to reclaim their copyright after a set period of time. Until the ruling, it was widely understood that when an author exercises their termination rights under US law, this applies only to US rights.
But the ruling by the US District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana has upended this, concluding that a termination under US law applies globally. Resnik Music Group asserts the ruling will create chaos in the industry. “Copyright in each work [will be] dependent on its country of origin, rather than the orderly system that the nations of the world have in fact developed over more than a century, in which the applicable law is the law of the place ‘where protection is claimed.’”
Vetter’s lawyers called Resnik’s claims a “novel theory” about copyright functionality, but agreed the Court’s ruling is the correct one under international law. Resnik’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss the case back in July, arguing that ruling in Vetter’s favor would result in chaos.
The Court’s ruling is likely to be appealed, as Resnik’s legal team had already attempted to appeal at an earlier point in the proceedings.
“Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” was written in 1962 by Don Smith and Cyril Vetter. The song was first recorded in 1963 by Dick Holler and the Holidays, but it was in 1966 that it became a Top 40 hit when it was recorded by the Swingin’ Medallions. Smith and Vetter sold the rights to the song in 1963 to Windsong Music Publishers for one dollar.
The song’s copyright came up for renewal in 1994. Per the original agreement, Vetter’s copyright was extended for another 28 years under pre-1976 copyright law. Smith died in 1972, and his heirs took back their share of the copyright, and sold it to Vetter.
Windsong sold their rights in the song to Resnik Music Group in 2019. In 2022, Vetter notified Resnik that he was exercising his termination rights — 56 years after the copyright was originally taken out — and taking full control of the song. Resnik continued to claim one-quarter ownership of the copyright, granting it international rights to it, which prompted Vetter to take the matter to court.