Salt-N-Pepa lawsuit dismissed | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: Universal Music group also seems to always be involved in some sort of litigations. Says Here, a judge is thrown out Salt and Pepa's lawsuit against Universal Music. 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 two oh three of the Copyright Act, under which artists can draw but can claw back they're masters decades after signing away the copyrights. By the way, for anyone who doesn't know, I know a lot of industry people listen to the show.

0:38 Speaker 1: But if you don't know, when we talk about the masters means the master recordings, the original recordings that were done of these. You know, if you're if you're a recording artist, 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. 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, when the lawsuit was filed, it got complicated about who actually owned the masters because it wasn't as simple as they were trying to get their masters back from UMG. There was this also this other thing about somebody owned part of the masters or owned all the masters, like 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 that with their original contract, that it was in the contract that the copyrights would revert back to them after thirty five years. Yes, but then when you go to 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 deal with Imprint Next Plateau Records. So though apparently they thought they did and they thought they had this contract, UMG has somehow found this loophole and said, oh, well they didn't actually sign it, and the judge went up dismissed the whole thing. Yeah, and that's so wrong in 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, 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 say easy, music is more accessible, artistry is more accessible to the world. Because of the Internet, people can get their voice out there, even on their own. You can self publish a book, you can produce and put your own music out. Back in the day, back in the eighties, you had to get found. You had to find something, somebody who would take notice of you, and it would It was beyond rare to be noticed that if somebody did. That level of excitement at that young age is like.

3:11 Speaker 2: Oh my god, we got a record contract. Whoo, you 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 like there's some loophole here because that one sentence doesn't give me enough information. Yeah, that they got to take a walk away with all of their artistry, all of their work and say too bad, too sad, thirty five years wind have gone by, but we're still not going to give it back to you because we want to make as much money off of you as possible, and they didn't. Right now, the artist is completely left out in the cold. Your creation, your artistry, your heart insul 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 Good Morning America in August, quote, when you're an artist in the beginning, you sign a contract saying that the copyrights will revert back to you after thirty five years. And we've done all the things legally to get our copyrights back, but they're just refusing. So we had to see them unquote. Denton and James further claimed UMG had removed some of their biggest hits, including push It, from streaming platforms, amid the legal fight.

4:41 Speaker 4: They retaliated against them. Yeah, so they couldn't make money off of they're more popular. They're hugely popularslong push It. 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 that Salt and Pepa did not have the termination rights because they didn't actually sign their nineteen eighty six record 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 was if that was the flat out case all this time, 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, 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 to be.

5:41 Speaker 4: This has been going on for too long for that to suddenly come out now. I feel like there has to be a loophole they're using.

5:47 Speaker 3: Maybe I'm wrong, Well what so, how how do they even This is what I don't get. If they if they never signed the contract, then then that means there 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 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 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 if he dismissed it with prejudice or not. We just know that he dismissed the entire case.

6:23 Speaker 1: Yeah, it says Judge Denise Cody 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 has gratified that the court dismissed this baseless lawsuit. Salt and Peppa have the right to 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? How dare you?

6:56 Speaker 3: You know?

6:56 Speaker 4: This is the big billion dollar company that's got every rich lawyer at their disposal, with all kinds of resources against a couple of artists who probably don't make a heck of a lot offer their music that's streaming, that insult to injury. All this time, they've been looking forward to having their music back thirty five years, oh, waiting for the day, waiting for the day, And the day finally comes and the billion dollar industry found a way 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 the stick because they can't afford to put up the 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