Amicus Brief in the Salt-N-Pepa Case Asking the Second Circuit Court to Safeguard Authors’ Section 203 Termination Right

With the generous help of NYU’s Technology Law & Policy Clinic, we filed an amicus brief today in support of Salt-N-Pepa. Our amicus brief owes a special thanks to NYU Law School students Lilit Arakelyan and Fritzie Schwentker, and UC Berkeley student Kalani Gaviola.

The plaintiff-appellant, Salt-N-Pepa, was the first female rap act to achieve RIAA gold and platinum status. As their current lawsuit against UMG illustrates, even for successful creators, pushing back against distributors can often be an uphill battle.

As we’ve discussed in our previous blog post on this litigation, the outcome of this case could significantly shape whether Section 203 termination right remains meaningful in practice, or becomes effectively hollow.

Our brief focuses on a straightforward yet fundamental point: Congress enacted Section 203 specifically to guarantee authors a second chance. Because creators often sign away rights early in their careers—before the true value of their works is known—termination rights ensure they can later reclaim those rights and renegotiate with distributors for fairer terms. Termination rights are essential for preserving fairness and promoting access in our copyright ecosystem: authors can share in the long-term value of their work and, in many cases, to make those works more widely available for the public as well.

The district court’s decision undermines termination rights in several important ways.

First, it allows private agreements to override termination rights, even though the statute explicitly states that termination applies “notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary.” If upheld, this reasoning would invite industry players to contract around termination as a matter of routine.

Second, the decision sidesteps the required analysis of whether the plaintiffs’ works qualify as “works made for hire.” That designation is a narrow exception to termination rights, and courts must examine the real-world relationship between creators and companies, instead of solely relying on contract language or copyright registrations as the district court has done in its opinion. 

Third, the decision let downstream transfers defeat termination altogether. By insulating entities that never directly contracted with the authors from termination, the decision creates a roadmap for evading Section 203. Our brief explains why the statute must be construed to foreclose this outcome. Termination must remain effective not only against an original grantee, but also against the grantee’s successors in title.

Taken together, if third-party agreements can waive termination, if “work for hire” status can be asserted without factual support, and if later transfers can insulate copyright grants from termination, then the statutory promise of a second chance for authors disappears. 

We hope the Second Circuit will reverse the district court’s erroneous holding and instead help preserve termination rights as a crucial safeguard for authors as well as public interest in copyright law.