\n\t\t\tTrending on Billboard\t\t<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n\tSalt-N-Pepa is getting support from Irving Azoff<\/strong>\u2019s Music Artists Coalition (MAC) in litigation with Universal Music Group (UMG) over rights to the iconic hip-hop duo\u2019s catalog of hits.<\/p>\n \n\tMAC submitted an amicus brief on Tuesday (April 7) to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which is reviewing a lower court\u2019s dismissal of the lawsuit brought by Cheryl \u201cSalt\u201d James and Sandra \u201cPepa\u201d Denton against the world\u2019s largest music company. The dispute stems from UMG\u2019s refusal to revert the rappers\u2019 master recordings after they exercised the so-called \u201ctermination right,\u201d a tenet of copyright law that allows creators to claw back their intellectual property decades after signing it away.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tSalt-N-Pepa Music Ownership Appeal: Rappers Say UMG Unfairly Keeping \u2018Lion\u2019s Share\u2019 of\u00a0Royalties\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \n\tA New York federal judge ruled in January that Salt-N-Pepa has no termination rights because the duo was not actually a party to any of its 1986 contracts with Next Plateau Records, which has since been absorbed by UMG. These deals were executed by the duo\u2019s music producer, Hurby \u201cLuv Bug\u201d Azor<\/strong>, and do not say anywhere that Salt-N-Pepa owned its songs.<\/p>\n \n\tMAC, the advocacy group founded by Azoff in 2019 alongside artists like Don Henley, Dave Matthews and Anderson .Paak, warns in its amicus brief that the lower court\u2019s decision creates a dangerous roadmap showing record labels and music publishers how to hold onto copyrights past the termination window.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThis ill-conceived rule makes it trivially easy for publishers or distributors to evade termination: By transferring rights to a new entity and ensuring an author is neither a party to nor an executor of the new grant, publishers and distributors can entirely insulate themselves from an author\u2019s enforcement of statutory termination rights,\u201d reads the brief. \u201cAccepting such a rule would render decades of negotiation and eventual compromise between authors and distributors \u2014 as codified in the 1976 Act \u2014 entirely meaningless, nullifying the hard\u2011won protections the 1976 Copyright Act affords authors.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tMAC, joined by writer advocacy group Authors Alliance and legal organization Public Knowledge, says Congress explicitly created copyright termination to address creators\u2019 inadequate leverage and compensation early in their careers. The brief notes, for example, that Bob Dylan received only a $100 advance in his first publishing deal in 1962, and Bruce Springsteen signed away his entire catalog to a manager in exchange for just 3% of royalties in 1972. \u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tRelated\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \t\t\t\t\tTLC, Salt-N-Pepa & En Vogue Are Going on an Iconic Joint Tour: \u2018The Show Is Going to Be\u00a0Crazy\u2019\t\t<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n \n\tAlso on Tuesday, the National Society of Entertainment & Arts Lawyers (NSEAL) submitted its own amicus brief in support of Salt-N-Pepa. Authored by the New Orleans-based music attorney who recently won a landmark appellate ruling on the global reach of copyright termination, the brief focuses on the \u201cwork for hire\u201d exception to termination rights.<\/p>\n \n\tUnder copyright law, work created in the scope of employment is not eligible for termination. Though the lower court did not focus on this exception in the Salt-N-Pepa ruling, NSEAL argues that the decision implicitly determined \u2014 incorrectly \u2014 that the rappers were working for hire in 1986.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cInherent in the district court\u2019s conclusion that there was no \u2018transfer of copyright ownership\u2019 by Denton and James, is a determination that the subject recordings were \u2018works made for hire,\u2019\u201d writes NSEAL. \u201cRespectfully, making that determination without any factual development or legal explanation was reversible error, and the case should be remanded.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tSalt-N-Pepa\u2019s lawyer, Richard Busch<\/strong>, praised both briefs in a statement to Billboard<\/em>: \u201cThat these amazing groups of the top people in the industry filed these amicus briefs speaks volumes not only to the strength of this appeal but to its importance to all artists in the music industry.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tA rep for UMG did not return a request for comment on the amicus briefs on Wednesday (April 8). The company\u2019s own appellate brief is due next month.<\/p>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/pro\/salt-n-pepa-umg-music-ownership-appeal-irving-azoff-support\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2268542211-e1775678204878.jpg?w=1024″] Trending on Billboard Salt-N-Pepa is getting support from Irving Azoff\u2019s Music Artists Coalition (MAC) in litigation with Universal Music Group (UMG) over rights to the iconic hip-hop duo\u2019s catalog of hits. MAC submitted an amicus brief on Tuesday (April 7) to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which is reviewing a lower […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,226],"class_list":["post-1872736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-billboard-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1872736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1872736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1872736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1872736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1872736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
![LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - MARCH 26: (FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY) (L-R) Sandra \"Pepa\" Denton and Cheryl \"Salt\" James of Salt-N-Pepa perform onstage at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theatre on March 26, 2026 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter\/Getty Images for iHeartRadio)](\"https:\/\/www.billboard.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/2268542204-e1775000712204.jpg?w=237&h=147&crop=1\")
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