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# Supreme Court Quorum Shortfall Leaves Worldwide Songwriter Rights Ruling Intact
- URL: https://www.theamericanquorum.com/supreme-court-quorum-shortfall-leaves-worldwide-songwriter-rights-ruling-intact/
- Published: 2026-10-19T20:25:09.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-19T20:25:09.000Z
- Description: Four justices’ nonparticipation left the Supreme Court unable to hear a music-publishing dispute. The resulting procedural affirmance preserves Cyril Vetter’s victory without a majority ruling on worldwide copyright termination.
- Author: News Desk
- Tags: Entertainment, Louisiana

The Supreme Court on October 19 left intact a ruling recognizing songwriter Cyril Vetter’s reclaimed copyright rights worldwide after four justices did not participate, leaving the Court without a quorum. The [official docket](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-1391.html?ref=theamericanquorum.com) records a procedural affirmance under federal law, preserving a significant victory for the co-writer of “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)” without a majority Supreme Court opinion resolving the copyright question.

The dispute pits an artist’s statutory opportunity to recover rights against publishers’ understanding of how international music agreements work. [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-rejects-music-labels-challenge-copyright-termination-ruling-2026-10-19/?ref=theamericanquorum.com) reported that the publishing arms of BMG, Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music sought review after acquiring the disputed interest following the appeals court’s decision. Their challenge failed to dislodge that judgment, but the unusual reason matters to how broadly Monday’s action can be described.

## Four nonparticipating justices change the outcome

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson took no part in considering or deciding the petition, according to the [court record](https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-1391.html?ref=theamericanquorum.com). The order did not state their reasons. It said the qualified justices believed the case could not be heard and determined at the Court’s next term, triggering a statutory resolution rather than ordinary consideration of the petition.

Under [Section 2109](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/2109?ref=theamericanquorum.com), when a covered case cannot be heard because a quorum is absent and the required determination about the next term is made, the Court must affirm the lower judgment. The statute gives that disposition the same effect as an affirmance by an equally divided court. That is different from a reasoned majority decision adopting the Fifth Circuit’s interpretation of copyright law.

[Bloomberg Law](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/supreme-court-affirms-foreign-rights-ruling-after-lacking-quorum?ref=theamericanquorum.com) independently reported the quorum problem and the four justices’ nonparticipation. The immediate result is therefore clear even though the wider legal dispute remains contested: the judgment survives. Describing Monday’s action simply as a new Supreme Court rule granting every songwriter worldwide rights would go beyond what the order actually says.

## A Louisiana song becomes an international rights dispute

The [appellate opinion](https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/25/25-30108-CV0.pdf?ref=theamericanquorum.com) traces the case to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Vetter and Donald Smith wrote “Double Shot” in 1962\. In 1963, they assigned their respective worldwide copyright interests to Windsong Music Publishers for one dollar. Decades later, Vetter sent a termination notice in March 2019, specifying May 3, 2022, as its effective date.

According to the [appellate record](https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/25/25-30108-CV0.pdf?ref=theamericanquorum.com), the commercial disagreement became concrete when ABC sought to expand a television episode’s music license to include worldwide digital broadcasts and on-demand streams. Vetter’s side quoted a price on the basis that it controlled the song worldwide; Resnik continued asserting an ownership interest. The ensuing Louisiana lawsuit asked who owned the rights, not whether an unauthorized performance had occurred.

There were also two distinct paths to ownership. Vetter’s own interest depended on termination of his earlier grant, while Vetter Communications Corporation held a renewal interest acquired from Smith’s heirs. The [respondents’ brief](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-1391/424165/20260914162342743%5FVetter%20BIO.pdf?ref=theamericanquorum.com) emphasized that the publishers did not challenge the separate renewal holding in their Supreme Court petition. That distinction prevents treating the litigation as a single undifferentiated claim to all music rights.

## Termination offers a second chance, not automatic ownership

The [Copyright Office](https://www.copyright.gov/recordation/termination.html?ref=theamericanquorum.com) explains that termination provisions allow authors or qualifying heirs, under specified circumstances, to recover previously granted rights long after an original agreement. The purpose is to give creators another opportunity to benefit when a work becomes economically successful after they signed an unfavorable deal. Which provision applies depends on factors including the grant’s date, who made it and when copyright was secured.

This case concerns [Section 304(c)](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/304?ref=theamericanquorum.com), which addresses certain grants executed before January 1, 1978, involving copyrights then in their original or renewal terms. It is not a blanket cancellation of every old entertainment contract. The law contains eligibility conditions and timing requirements, and excludes works made for hire from this termination route.

The timing provisions require planning years ahead. Under the [statutory timetable](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/304?ref=theamericanquorum.com), the five-year termination window begins 56 years after copyright was originally secured, or on January 1, 1978, whichever is later. Written notice must be served between two and ten years before the selected effective date. The statute also protects termination against contrary contractual agreements. These conditions help explain why Monday’s disposition is not an immediate, automatic transfer of every older song in a publisher’s catalog.

Nor does a favorable ownership ruling erase the mechanics of exercising termination. The Copyright Office requires compliance with service and recordation rules, including recording the notice before its effective date. It also identifies limits involving derivative works: an authorized derivative work prepared before termination may continue to be used under the original grant’s terms, without extending that exception to preparation of new derivative works.

## The central disagreement is over geography

The statutory language says termination affects rights arising under federal copyright law and does not affect rights arising under other federal, state or foreign laws. In their [petition](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-1391/413143/20260611162825890%5FNo.%5FPetition.pdf?ref=theamericanquorum.com), the music publishers argued that this language preserves foreign copyrights even when an author recovers U.S. rights. They maintained that publishers, artists and investors had structured long-term agreements around that territorial understanding.

The Fifth Circuit read the provision differently. Its [January ruling](https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/25/25-30108-CV0.pdf?ref=theamericanquorum.com) treated Vetter’s rights as originating under U.S. copyright law and concluded that termination recovered those rights, including their international reach. The panel found no explicit geographic limit restricting the recovered interest to exploitation within the United States. That reasoning supported its affirmance of the district court’s worldwide ownership declaration.

For readers outside copyright practice, the dispute is not whether music crosses borders. It is whether ending a grant under U.S. law restores only the domestic portion of a worldwide deal or also the international rights originally conveyed. Both sides claimed the statutory text supported them; Monday’s order supplied no new majority analysis choosing between those competing interpretations.

## Studios warn of disruption; Vetter disputes the forecast

The [film industry](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-1391/416684/20260716155741078%5FMPA%20Amicus%20-%20BMG%20v.%20Vetter.pdf?ref=theamericanquorum.com) also intervened. In a supporting brief, the Motion Picture Association argued that uncertainty over foreign ownership could obstruct negotiations between authors and studios, with each side believing it already controlled rights the other wanted to sell. The association warned that conflicts between U.S. and foreign legal outcomes could complicate worldwide releases and the exploitation of established properties.

Those warnings are the trade group’s litigation position, not measured consequences established by Monday’s action. Its argument links the music case to film and television because studios negotiate rights to underlying works and invest in adaptations. The brief contends that incompatible assumptions about ownership could prevent agreements that otherwise would have been commercially workable.

The association’s [brief](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-1391/416684/20260716155741078%5FMPA%20Amicus%20-%20BMG%20v.%20Vetter.pdf?ref=theamericanquorum.com) also distinguishes the underlying work from material a studio subsequently creates. Studios may own copyrights in new expression and separate trademark rights. Recovering an underlying story therefore would not necessarily allow its author or a new buyer to reproduce every element of an existing screen franchise.

Vetter’s lawyers offered the opposite assessment in their [opposition brief](https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/25/25-1391/424165/20260914162342743%5FVetter%20BIO.pdf?ref=theamericanquorum.com). They argued that the publishers overstated the urgency and disruption, that no other federal appeals court had decided the same question, and that the industry already accommodates contractual reversions and statutory termination risks. They also pointed to the separate renewal interest as a reason this case was a poor vehicle for the sweeping review the publishers sought.

The durable outcome is narrower than either side’s broadest forecast. Vetter’s ownership victory remains intact, while questions about other contracts, other works and foreign enforcement must be distinguished from this judgment. The surviving appellate reasoning matters to future rights disputes, but the Supreme Court’s quorum-based disposition does not establish that every author can reclaim every overseas interest—or that the predicted industry disruption has occurred.