Salt-N-Pepa lawsuit dismissed | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Universal Music group also seems to always be involved in

0:02 Speaker 1: some sort of litigations. Says Here, a judge is thrown

0:06 Speaker 1: out Salt and Pepa's lawsuit against Universal Music. The suit

0:11 Speaker 1: sought to retake control of the hip hop duo's master recordings.

0:15 Speaker 1: Cheryl Salt James and Sandra Pepa Denton attempted to exercise

0:21 Speaker 1: their so called termination rights under section two oh three

0:25 Speaker 1: of the Copyright Act, under which artists can draw but

0:28 Speaker 1: can claw back they're masters decades after signing away the copyrights.

0:35 Speaker 1: By the way, for anyone who doesn't know, I know

0:36 Speaker 1: a lot of industry people listen to the show. But

0:38 Speaker 1: if you don't know, when we talk about the masters

0:41 Speaker 1: means the master recordings, the original recordings that were done

0:46 Speaker 1: of these. You know, if you're if you're a recording artist,

0:49 Speaker 1: you ideally you want to own your master recordings.

0:52 Speaker 2: He who owns the master owns the song.

0:55 Speaker 3: Yes.

0:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, So this is what they were trying to do.

0:58 Speaker 1: They were trying to take take back control.

1:01 Speaker 3: But again this was.

1:01 Speaker 1: A thing where because I remember the original story about this,

1:05 Speaker 1: when the lawsuit was filed, it got complicated about who

1:09 Speaker 1: actually owned the masters because it wasn't as simple as

1:14 Speaker 1: they were trying to get their masters back from UMG.

1:17 Speaker 1: There was this also this other thing about somebody owned

1:21 Speaker 1: part of the masters or owned all the masters, like

1:23 Speaker 1: a former manager of theirs or something.

1:25 Speaker 3: It was this whole convoluted thing.

1:29 Speaker 4: Interesting though how this pans out though, because it said

1:34 Speaker 4: that with their original contract, that it was in the

1:38 Speaker 4: contract that the copyrights would revert back to them after

1:43 Speaker 4: thirty five years. Yes, but then when you go to

1:47 Speaker 4: the contract, UMG said, well, Salt and Pepper didn't actually.

1:53 Speaker 3: Sign it, oh right, in.

1:55 Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty six.

1:57 Speaker 4: Right, they didn't actually sign the nineteen eighty six record

2:00 Speaker 4: deal with Imprint Next Plateau Records. So though apparently they

2:06 Speaker 4: thought they did and they thought they had this contract,

2:09 Speaker 4: UMG has somehow found this loophole and said, oh, well

2:12 Speaker 4: they didn't actually sign it, and the judge went up

2:17 Speaker 4: dismissed the whole thing. Yeah, and that's so wrong in

2:22 Speaker 4: my book, that is so wrong.

2:24 Speaker 2: That is so wrong.

2:26 Speaker 4: A lot of these artists too, especially back in the day,

2:29 Speaker 4: you know, before the Internet, it was really hard for artists.

2:34 Speaker 2: To get any attention.

2:35 Speaker 4: It's so much easier now, not that it's I shouldn't

2:39 Speaker 4: say easy, music is more accessible, artistry is more accessible

2:43 Speaker 4: to the world. Because of the Internet, people can get

2:45 Speaker 4: their voice out there, even on their own. You can

2:48 Speaker 4: self publish a book, you can produce and put your

2:51 Speaker 4: own music out. Back in the day, back in the eighties,

2:54 Speaker 4: you had to get found. You had to find something,

2:58 Speaker 4: somebody who would take notice of you, and it would

3:02 Speaker 4: It was beyond rare to be noticed that if somebody did.

3:07 Speaker 4: That level of excitement at that young age is like.

3:11 Speaker 2: Oh my god, we got a record contract. Whoo, you

3:14 Speaker 2: don't lose your mind.

3:16 Speaker 4: And I honestly believe that they wholeheartedly believed and had a.

3:21 Speaker 2: Contract at that time.

3:24 Speaker 4: I don't know what this is or but I feel

3:27 Speaker 4: like there's some loophole here because that one sentence doesn't

3:32 Speaker 4: give me enough information. Yeah, that they got to take

3:36 Speaker 4: a walk away with all of their artistry, all of

3:39 Speaker 4: their work and say too bad, too sad, thirty five

3:43 Speaker 4: years wind have gone by, but we're still not going

3:45 Speaker 4: to give it back to you because we want to

3:47 Speaker 4: make as much money off of you as possible, and

3:50 Speaker 4: they didn't. Right now, the artist is completely left out

3:56 Speaker 4: in the cold. Your creation, your artistry, your heart insul

4:01 Speaker 4: and you don't get nothing, but the multi billion dollar company.

4:04 Speaker 1: Does, so, it says James who assault. Cheryl James told

4:12 Speaker 1: Good Morning America in August, quote, when you're an artist

4:15 Speaker 1: in the beginning, you sign a contract saying that the

4:18 Speaker 1: copyrights will revert back to you after thirty five years.

4:22 Speaker 1: And we've done all the things legally to get our

4:24 Speaker 1: copyrights back, but they're just refusing. So we had to

4:27 Speaker 1: see them unquote. Denton and James further claimed UMG had

4:32 Speaker 1: removed some of their biggest hits, including push It, from

4:36 Speaker 1: streaming platforms, amid the legal fight.

4:41 Speaker 4: They retaliated against them. Yeah, so they couldn't make money

4:45 Speaker 4: off of they're more popular. They're hugely popularslong push It.

4:49 Speaker 4: Yeah that see to add insult to injury.

4:55 Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, that's great.

4:57 Speaker 2: Going to be a special kind of awful human for that.

4:59 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's clear retaliatory. UMG mentioned I'm sorry. UMG maintained

5:08 Speaker 1: that Salt and Pepa did not have the termination rights

5:11 Speaker 1: because they didn't actually sign their nineteen eighty six record

5:14 Speaker 1: deal with Imprint next Plateau Records.

5:18 Speaker 2: Did a manager sign for them? You know what I mean?

5:20 Speaker 4: Like this this is something here, Yeah, because if that

5:25 Speaker 4: was if that was the flat out case all this time,

5:28 Speaker 4: they would have brought that out a long time ago.

5:30 Speaker 2: They found some kind of loophole.

5:31 Speaker 4: Maybe the manager signed it and not specifically the girls,

5:36 Speaker 4: So they're using that as a loophole of some kind.

5:39 Speaker 2: There's got to be more to that part. It has

5:41 Speaker 2: to be.

5:41 Speaker 4: This has been going on for too long for that

5:43 Speaker 4: to suddenly come out now. I feel like there has

5:46 Speaker 4: to be a loophole they're using.

5:47 Speaker 3: Maybe I'm wrong, Well what so, how how do they

5:51 Speaker 3: even This is what I don't get. If they if

5:56 Speaker 3: they never signed the contract, then then that means there

6:01 Speaker 3: is no contract, right, So what am I missing here?

6:04 Speaker 4: So how come they don't own this stuff anyway because

6:06 Speaker 4: they never signed a deal to give it.

6:07 Speaker 2: To somebody else?

6:08 Speaker 3: Right?

6:09 Speaker 2: True? The other side of the coin? Yeah, yeah, got

6:11 Speaker 2: a good point.

6:12 Speaker 3: So how does that work?

6:13 Speaker 4: But the judge just at hand, now we don't know

6:16 Speaker 4: if he dismissed it with prejudice or not. We just

6:19 Speaker 4: know that he dismissed the entire case.

6:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, it says Judge Denise Cody sided with UMG on

6:27 Speaker 1: Thursday and dismissed the claims entirely as a result of

6:31 Speaker 1: these findings. In a statement shared with Billboard, a UMG

6:34 Speaker 1: spokesperson said the company has gratified that the court dismissed

6:38 Speaker 1: this baseless lawsuit. Salt and Peppa have the right to

6:41 Speaker 1: appeal the dismissal order if they choose to do so.

6:45 Speaker 2: Baseless lawsuit, baseless. It's their artistry. How dare you? Yeah?

6:54 Speaker 2: How dare you?

6:56 Speaker 3: You know?

6:56 Speaker 4: This is the big billion dollar company that's got every

7:00 Speaker 4: rich lawyer at their disposal, with all kinds of resources

7:05 Speaker 4: against a couple of artists who probably don't make a

7:07 Speaker 4: heck of a lot offer their music that's streaming, that

7:12 Speaker 4: insult to injury. All this time, they've been looking forward

7:15 Speaker 4: to having their music back thirty five years, oh, waiting

7:19 Speaker 4: for the day, waiting for the day, And the day

7:21 Speaker 4: finally comes and the billion dollar industry found a way

7:26 Speaker 4: to get them yet again. It's so wrong. It's so wrong.

7:31 Speaker 4: It's always the artist to get the crappy end of

7:33 Speaker 4: the stick because they can't afford to put up the

7:36 Speaker 4: fights that these companies can.

7:39 Speaker 2: It's David and Goliath in a lot of these situations

7:42 Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, one hundred