Photo Credit: David Burke / CC by 2.0
Salt-N-Pepa is suing Universal Music Group for the rights to their catalog, claiming the label is holding their music hostage.
Cheryl James and Sandra Denton of the legendary hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa are suing Universal Music Group (UMG) for the rights to their catalog, which includes hits like “Push It,” “Shoop,” and “Whatta Man” featuring En Vogue. The duo claim the label is holding their music “hostage” and will not acquiesce to their request to invoke termination rights, by which songwriters can end their publishing agreements and regain their copyrights.
In a 166-page lawsuit filed Monday in New York, Denton and James state they “will not tolerate disrespect” from the label. The pair assert that they “not only transformed the genre but created, recorded, and performed some of the most famous hits of the twentieth century.” As the “First Females of Rap,” they were instrumental in “paving the way for subsequent generations of powerful and commercially successful female rap and hip-hop artists.”
According to the lawsuit, Salt-N-Pepa’s catalog has generated an estimated $1 million in the past five months in synchronization licenses alone, despite “little to no marketing efforts” on the part of UMG. The label has held a copyright grant since 1986, which has “given UMG the right to exploit Plaintiffs’ master recordings and retain a portion of all monies earned by Plaintiffs from the commercial exploitation of their work.”
Denton and James attempted to exercise their rights to termination of their contract with UMG under Section 203 of the Copyright Act of 1976, which allows songwriters to terminate copyright grants after 35 years.
But UMG has “refused to honor Plaintiffs’ Notices of Termination.” Instead, “UMG has indicated that it will hold Plaintiffs’ rights hostage even if it means tanking the value of Plaintiffs’ music catalog and depriving their fans of access to their work.” The lawsuit cites instances in which UMG removed Salt-N-Pepa songs from streaming platforms and made their music “unavailable for commercial exploitation in the US.”
Denton and James are seeking a jury trial. The duo is seeking both actual damages for money lost and punitive damages to be determined at trial. According to the filing, the actual damages alone could “well exceed $1 million.” They are also asking the court for a permanent injunction confirming their rights to their catalog.
UMG’s attorneys, in letters included as exhibits in the lawsuit, that they have pushed for mediation in order to reach a “mutually acceptable resolution.” However, lawyers for UMG also claim that Denton and James were not personally parties in the 1986 agreement that covered their initial albums. Further, there is “no evidence” that they ever granted the label copyright that could now be reclaimed.
According to UMG, the recordings were “works made for hire,” which would make them ineligible for the rights to be reclaimed. But Salt-N-Pepa’s lawsuit asserts that the pair’s agreements with the label very clearly state that they were not.
The lawsuit comes ahead of Salt-N-Pepa’s induction into the Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame on November 8. The group was the first female rap ensemble to win a Grammy in 1995, and in 2021, they received a lifetime achievement Grammy award.
Content shared from www.digitalmusicnews.com.