(US) BMG Rights Management v. Vetter: Supreme Court Affirms Worldwide Copyright Termination Judgment Without Reaching the Merits (2026)

(US) BMG Rights Management v. Vetter: Supreme Court Affirms Worldwide Copyright Termination Judgment Without Reaching the Merits (2026)

In BMG Rights Management (US) LLC v. Vetter, No. 25-1391 (U.S. Oct. 19, 2026), the Supreme Court affirmed the Fifth Circuit’s judgment under 28 U.S.C. § 2109 because the Court lacked a quorum. The disposition leaves standing the Fifth Circuit’s ruling that termination under 17 U.S.C. § 304(c) can recapture rights under a worldwide grant, but the Supreme Court did not decide the underlying statutory question on the merits.

Justices Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of the petition, and the order does not explain their nonparticipation. With only five Justices qualified, the Court lacked the quorum required by 28 U.S.C. § 1. Because the Court determined that the case could not be heard and decided at the next Term, § 2109 required an affirmance with the same effect as an affirmance by an equally divided Court.

The dispute concerns “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” written by Cyril Vetter and Don Smith in 1962 and assigned to Windsong Music Publishers in 1963. Vetter served a termination notice in 2019, effective in 2022. The district court declared Vetter the owner of his recaptured copyright interest worldwide, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed in Vetter v. Resnik, No. 25-30108 (5th Cir. Jan. 12, 2026).

The Fifth Circuit reasoned that § 304(c)(6)(E)—which limits termination to rights “covered by the grant that arise under this title” and preserves rights arising under other federal, state, or foreign laws—did not restrict termination to U.S. exploitation rights where the worldwide grant arose under U.S. copyright law. The court also affirmed the district court’s separate ruling concerning worldwide ownership of renewal copyright rights acquired from Smith’s heirs.

The petitioners argued that the decision unsettles longstanding industry practice and conflicts with the statutory limitation in § 304(c)(6)(E). Industry organizations and intellectual-property law professors supported Supreme Court review.

Section 2109’s affirmance does not establish a Supreme Court merits holding on worldwide copyright termination. Rather, the Fifth Circuit’s decision remains binding in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, and courts in other circuits are free to reach different conclusions.

The result leaves a consequential question unresolved at the national level. The Fifth Circuit has adopted an interpretation with potentially substantial implications for international copyright licensing, while the Supreme Court has neither endorsed nor rejected that interpretation on the merits. Nor have significant copyright circuits, like the Second and the Ninth, weighed in on the issue. For authors, publishers, and licensees, the distinction matters — the judgment stands, but the nationwide legal question remains unsettled.

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