Grammy-winning rap duo Salt-N-Pepa have filed a notice of appeal against the dismissal of their lawsuit against Universal Music Group over the copyrights to their master recordings.
Per Music Business Worldwide, Salt-N-Pepa’s Cheryl “Salt” James and Sandra “Pepa” Denton filed a notice on February 4 that challenges the January 8 ruling by District Judge Denise Cote that dismissed their claims against the music giant.
According to the dismissal, James and Denton never owned the copyrights to their own sound recordings and therefore are ineligible to reclaim them.
The “Push It” artists, however, assert that they have contracts from their early career that proves a legitimate transfer of ownership.
The case now center on if Salt-N-Pepa has the right to terminate UMG’s ownership of their sound recordings under Section 203 of the Copyright Act.
Section 203 allows artists to reclaim copyrights they transferred to labels 35 years after the original grant.
The federal termination statute was designed to give creators a second chance to control their work after initial contracts expire. Universal Music Group responded to its termination notices by arguing that the duo lacked legal standing because they never transferred the copyrights in the first place.
Initial agreement
In May 1986, James and Denton signed their first recording agreement, with Noise In The Attic Productions, Inc. (NITA) – a company owned by their producer Hurby Azor.
The agreement stipulated that NITA would be the “sole and exclusive owner” of any and all rights. At the same time, Azor entered into a distribution agreement with Next Plateau Records, which acquired ownership from NITA. Ultimately, UMG was a successor-in-interest to Next Plateau, which granted it the rights to the pair’s master recordings.
Salt-N-Pepa were not signatories to that distribution agreement, though they signed an “inducement letter” attached to it. They used the letter as a basis for why they should now have ownership, but Judge Cote disagreed.
“Even viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, the 1986 agreements do not indicate that Plaintiffs ever owned the copyrights to the sound recordings or that they granted a transfer of those rights to anyone else,” the ruling stated.
“The only copyright transfer effectuated by these agreements was the one from NITA to Next Plateau Records. And the statutory text in § 203 is clear: Plaintiffs can only terminate copyright transfers that they executed. They cannot terminate a copyright grant executed by NITA.”
In other news, the hip-hop duo will be honored as Hall of Fame inductees at the 57th NAACP Image Awards. They were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in November 2025. During their induction speech, they vowed to continue fighting to reclaim the rights to their master recordings.