US Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit: An appeal was filed by Robert Resnik and Resnik Music Group (appellants-defendants), challenging the judgment of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, which had declared Cyril E. Vetter and Vetter Communications Corporation (appelles-plaintiffs) to be the sole and exclusive owners of the copyright in the musical composition “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” throughout the world and questioning whether statutory termination under 17 United States Code (U.S.C.) § 304(c) and renewal rights under the Copyright Act of 1909 could operate beyond domestic (U.S.) copyright and extend to foreign exploitation rights. Smith, Stewart, Ramirez and Carl E. Stewart, JJ., affirmed the district court’s judgment in full, holding that statutory termination and renewal vested worldwide ownership in the Vetter Plaintiffs, and that the district court’s declaration was supported by statutory text, context, purpose, and governing copyright principles.
The dispute concerns ownership of the copyright in the song “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” (“Double Shot”), authored in 1962 by Cyril E. Vetter and Donald Smith in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 1963, both authors assigned 100% of their copyright interests, including renewal rights, to Windsong Music Publishers, Inc., for nominal consideration. The assignment expressly covers exclusive worldwide rights for the full term of copyright protection. Windsong later secured federal copyright registration under the Copyright Act of 1909, which provided an initial 28-year term with a contingent renewal term.
Donald Smith died in 1972, prior to commencement of the renewal term and under settled copyright law, his renewal rights vested in his heirs rather than in Windsong. In 1994, the renewal term was duly registered, resulting in split ownership, wherein Windsong held Vetter’s renewal interest, while Smith’s heirs held Smith’s renewal interest. In 1996, Vetter Communications Corporation acquired Smith’s heirs’ renewal rights, thereby consolidating half the renewal of interest. The subsequent assignments resulted in Resnik Music Group claiming a 25% interest through Windsong’s successor entities.
In March 2019, Vetter served a statutory notice of termination under 17 U.S.C. § 304(c), terminating all rights originally granted to Windsong under the 1963 assignment, effective 03-05-2022. Despite receipt of the termination notice, Resnik continued to assert partial ownership. The dispute crystallised when ABC sought a worldwide digital license for the song, and competing ownership claims emerged.
The Vetter Plaintiffs instituted a declaratory action in the Middle District of Louisiana seeking confirmation of exclusive ownership. The District Court denied Resnik’s motion to dismiss, granted summary judgment in favour of the Vetter Plaintiffs, and declared them sole owners of the copyright throughout the world, both by virtue of termination (Vetter’s recaptured interest) and renewal (VCC’s acquired interest). Thus, the present appeal was filed arguing that statutory termination and renewal could not affect foreign copyright rights.
The Court observed that the core issue was not infringement but ownership but whether rights “arising under” U.S. copyright law could be geographically bifurcated upon termination or renewal.
The Court noted that 17 U.S.C. § 304(c)(6)(E) limits termination only as to rights arising under “any other Federal, State, or foreign laws,” but does not impose a territorial restriction on rights that arise under the U.S. Copyright Act and are recognised internationally pursuant to treaty obligations.
The Court stated that the phrase “arise under this title” refers to the source of the rights, not their geographic reach. As the original worldwide grant stemmed from U.S. copyright law, termination necessarily restored the same bundle of rights that had been conveyed. The Court relied on principles articulated in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, 568 U.S. 519 (2013) endorsing a non-geographical interpretation of similar statutory language.
The Court analysed competing authorities, including Siegel v. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., 542 F. Supp. 2d 1098 (C.D. Cal. 2008), Fred Ahlert Music Corp. v. Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., 155 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 1998), and Clancy v. Jack Ryan Enterprises, Ltd., No. 17-CV-3371, 2021 WL 488683 and declined to follow them, holding that those cases relied heavily on non-binding treatises and conflated infringement-based territoriality with ownership questions. The Court further rejected the argument that termination or renewal violated international treaty obligations under the Berne Convention or the Universal Copyright Convention, holding that worldwide recognition of a copyright granted under U.S. law is consistent with national treatment and does not offend territoriality principles. The Court emphasised that statutory termination and renewal serve the remedial purpose of correcting unequal bargaining power and ensuring fair remuneration to authors and their heirs.
The Court remarked that “Supreme Court has described the purpose of the Copyright Act of 1909, which was ‘to give the author a second chance to obtain fair remuneration for his creative efforts and to provide the author’s family a Ê»new estate’ if the author died before the renewal period arrived.’ This purpose is consistent with the Vetter Plaintiff’s argument and the district court’s holding that Vetter Communications Corporation is the sole owner of Double Shot’s copyright throughout the world in VCC’s Renewal Copyright Interest. Only by recapturing the exclusive rights to Double Shot throughout the world rather than recapturing U.S. rights alone would Vetter Communications Corporation receive fair remuneration consistent with the purpose of the Copyright Act of 1909. Thus, the district court did not err based on the statutory text and purpose.”
The Court held that Cyril E. Vetter, by valid statutory termination under 17 U.S.C. § 304(c), recaptured exclusive worldwide rights in the copyright originally assigned, and that Vetter Communications Corporation, by operation of the renewal provisions of the Copyright Act of 1909, held a new and unencumbered worldwide copyright estate. Consequently, the Vetter Plaintiffs were correctly declared the sole owners of the copyright in “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” throughout the world, and the judgment of the district court was affirmed in its entirety.
[Cyril E. Vetter v Robert Resnik, 2026 SCC OnLine US CA 5C 1, decided on 12-01-2026]