Salt-N-Pepa’s Lawsuit Against UMG Dismissed

A judge has thrown out Salt-N-Pepa’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG). The suit sought to retake control of the hip-hop duo’s master recordings. Cheryl ‘Salt’ James and Sandra ‘Pepa’ Denton attempted to exercise their so-called “termination rights” under Section 203 of the Copyright Act, under which artists can claw back their master s decades after signing away the copyrights. The duo sued UMG in May after the company refused the request.

“When you’re an artist, in the beginning, you sign a contract saying that the copyrights will revert back to you after 35 years,” James told Good Morning America in August. “And we’ve done all the things legally to get our copyrights back. But they’re just refusing, so we had to sue them.” Denton and James further claimed UMG had removed some of their biggest hits, including Push It, from streaming platforms amid the legal stoush. UMG maintained that Salt-N-Pepa did not have any termination rights because they didn’t actually sign their 1986 record deal with imprint Next Plateau Records.

Judge Denise Cote sided with UMG on Thursday and dismissed the claims entirely as a result of these findings. In a statement shared with Billboard, a UMG spokesperson said the company is “gratified that the court dismissed this baseless lawsuit”. Salt-N-Pepa have the right to appeal the dismissal order if they choose to do so.