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UMG Tells Appeals Court Salt‑N‑Pepa Lawsuit Suffers a “Foundational Deficiency”
UMG told the Second Circuit that Salt‑N‑Pepa’s effort to reclaim their 1986 masters suffers a "foundational deficiency," arguing the termination right doesn’t apply because the 1986 deal was between Next Plateau and producer Hurby Azor, not the duo.
When Cheryl “Salt” James and Sandra “Pepa” Denton took their fight to the Second Circuit, they framed it as an artist’s comeback: reclaim the masters that shaped late‑’80s and early‑’90s hip‑hop and correct an old power imbalance. Universal Music Group’s response, filed May 5, 2026, reads less like rebuttal and more like a law firm’s anatomy lesson, arguing that the duo’s claim falls apart at the very foundation.
UMG’s brief picks over the technicalities that sank the original complaint in January 2026 — not the politics of termination rights but who actually signed the 1986 agreements. A federal judge tossed the case after finding the record deal wasn’t between Salt‑N‑Pepa and Next Plateau Records directly; it was a deal between Next Plateau and their then‑producer, Hurby “Luv Bug” Azor. That distinction, UMG insists, isn’t a clerical quibble. It’s dispositive.
The company’s lawyers make the predictable counterargument: yes, Congress intended the termination right to give creators a second chance, but that intent exists inside a statutory framework that limits when and how termination can be exercised. UMG’s filing calls the duo’s suit a “foundational deficiency” and stresses that the Copyright Act forbids terminating transfers made by a third party who actually held the rights at the time of assignment.
“While plaintiffs and their amici emphasize the congressional policy to give authors a second chance to capture the value of their creative works through a termination right, they ignore the extent to which the entire termination provision is itself a carefully balanced scheme that also places important limitations on when and how the right may be exercised,” UMG wrote.
That paragraph is the brief’s thesis statement: the termination right is a policy, but not an open door. UMG points to what it calls a modest judicial requirement — that a grant be made by the actual owner — and frames the district court’s dismissal as a routine enforcement of that baseline rule. From a legal strategy perspective it’s tidy; from a cultural one, it’s a foil to the narrative of creators reclaiming their catalogs.
Salt‑N‑Pepa aren’t without allies. The Music Artists Coalition, backed by Irving Azoff, has urged the appeals court to read termination broadly, arguing Congress meant to rebalance decades of unequal leverage in early contracts. That argument matters. For many Black artists who signed away rights in the 1970s and ’80s, termination is less theoretical and more a potential economic lifeline.
There’s also a larger fight playing out beyond this single duo. UMG and other major labels have been aggressive in protecting the limits of termination across multiple fronts. Last month the company, joined by Warner, Sony and BMG, purchased a disputed copyright at the center of a ruling that expanded termination’s international reach — a purchase made expressly to take the issue up to the U.S. Supreme Court. The labels say the lower court decision has “upended” decades of global dealmaking; critics say the labels are weaponizing market power to block artists from reclaiming value.
Against that backdrop, Salt‑N‑Pepa’s appeal reads as both an attempt to enforce a statutory safety valve and a test case for how courts will interpret the text when contracts, assignments and chain‑of‑title are messy. The next procedural steps are procedural but consequential: the pair will file written rebuttals, and then a Second Circuit panel will decide whether the case deserves oral argument. If it moves forward, judges there will be forced to choose between a narrow textual reading that preserves industry norms and a broader, purposive approach that tilts toward creators.
Watching this play out feels oddly like watching a remix of old disputes: power, money, and authorship getting rearranged, but with higher stakes now that streaming has made back catalogs worth real money again. Salt‑N‑Pepa, who even today can cut through a crowd when they appear onstage — their set at the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards felt like a reminder of how durable their songs are — are fighting for more than royalties. They’re asking whether the law will correct for historical bargains or entrench them. For legacy artists who’ve spent decades watching their work accrue value they never saw, the answer matters.
