All Change Please- These Rights Terminate Here

US termination rights have been somewhat of an industry secret in times gone by- and understandably so given their creator friendly purpose. For any not familiar, this is the legal right of a songwriter to reclaim US rights they have previously transferred (say under a publishing deal) after 35 years (or 56 years for pre-1978 compositions).

Photo by Sasun Bughdaryan

These sit quietly inside a catalog for years, sometimes decades, looking like a future technicality rather than a present commercial issue. Savvy writers (and lawyers) have been utilising them more and more in recent years- their frequency of use heavily correlated with the increased volume of catalog transactions. A date arrives, a notice is served, and a right that was treated as long-term ownership suddenly changes.

For anyone buying music rights, particularly funds acquiring publishing catalogs or master rights at meaningful multiples, this matters. The valuation of a catalog is never only about what it earned last year, but incorporates how long the buyer can reasonably expect to control the income stream, in which territories, through which contracts, and with what level of confidence.

US termination rights sit right in the middle of that question- and they’re evolving.

Diaries at the Ready

At a basic level, US copyright law gives authors, and in some circumstances their heirs, the ability to terminate earlier grants of copyright after a long period of time. The idea is relatively simple- a creator may have signed away rights early in their career, before anyone knew what the work would become. Decades later the law gives that creator a chance to reclaim those rights or renegotiate from a stronger position. In music terms, this can affect songwriters, recording artists, estates, publishers, labels, administrators and downstream buyers.

The mechanics are also deceptively dry, but (of course) they matter. For post-1978 grants, Section 203 of the US Copyright Act generally allows termination during a five-year window beginning 35 years after the grant was executed. If the grant included the right of publication, the calculation can depend on publication date or execution date. The notice itself must be served no less than two years, and no more than ten years, before the effective termination date, and a copy must be recorded with the US Copyright Office before the effective date.

For pre-1978 works, Section 304 has its own rules, including termination periods linked to the extended renewal term. There are further complications around who can serve the notice, whether the author is alive, whether heirs are involved, whether the grant was made by one author or multiple authors, and whether the work was made for hire (which we won’t dive into the nuance of here). Phew.

Don’t Risk It

From a fund perspective, the problem is not simply that rights may terminate- it is the uncertainty that they fuel.

A buyer may be acquiring a catalog with thousands of works, each with its own grant history, writer splits, copyright dates, territories, amendments, extensions, prior administrations, sub-publishing arrangements and possible reversions. Inevitably songs will have many writers, with each writer share subject to a different grant. One share may be terminable, another may not. One may have been assigned by the author, another by an heir. One agreement may cover the world. Another may only cover North America. One contract may have an express reversion clause unrelated to statutory termination. Another may have no useful metadata attached at all (which as we all know, is the cornerstone of any copyright business).

This is where legal risk takes off its mask to reveal its true identity. It’s a data problem.

During acquisition diligence, termination rights should influence both valuation and structure. If a catalog contains works approaching a termination window, a buyer needs to know whether the revenue being valued is likely to continue on the same basis. If the US share of income is material, statutory termination may affect the durability of that income. If the catalog contains older works with international income, the current legal uncertainty around the territorial scope of termination becomes even more important.

… now available in WW flavour?

Historically, the music industry’s working assumption has been that US termination rights affect US rights only. A writer could terminate a US grant and regain the US rights, while non-US rights would remain with the existing publisher or administrator, depending on the contract chain and local law. That assumption is now under pressure.

The live case to watch is BMG Rights Management v. Vetter (previously Vetter v. Resnik- of course the majors are now involved). In January 2026, the US Court of Appeals upheld a decision that treated statutory termination as reaching worldwide rights in the work at issue, rather than being limited to US rights. The major publishers and BMG have now asked the US Supreme Court to step in.

The practical question at the heart of the legal bombardment is significant: when a US author terminates an old grant, do they recapture only US rights, or can they recapture global rights that were originally transferred through that grant? (for further reading the excellent Chris Cooke wrote a superb exploration of the detail and impact).

If the answer is US-only, the market continues broadly in line with long-standing convention, though with plenty of work still required around notices, dates and documentation, as above. If the answer is worldwide, the implications are much wider. It could affect how older worldwide publishing grants are valued, how legacy catalogs are administered, how international income is modelled, and how aggressively writers and estates approach renegotiation.

It is worth being careful here, as the law has yet to fully settle with the case travelling up to the US Supreme Court. Until then, buyers and sellers are operating in a market where one of the core assumptions behind catalog control is being tested.

That does not mean funds should stop buying catalogs with termination exposure. In many cases, the risk will be manageable and in some cases already priced in. In others, the works at issue may not be material enough to move the investment forecasting. Either way termination needs to be part of the diligence workflow, not a legal footnote checked after the model has already been built.

Use it, or Lose it

For every asset there should be a copyright date. Ideally there should also be the underlying grant date, publication date where relevant, agreement type, territory, writer share, grantor, current successor-in-title, work-for-hire status if asserted, and any known reversion language….. but at the least, a copyright date and number. From there, each asset has an expected termination window and, just as importantly, the date when the notice window opens.

This is the operational date. The notice has to be served in the correct window, by the correct party, on the correct grantee or successor, and recorded properly. A one-month warning before the notice window opens should be the bare minimum. In larger or more complex catalogs, six months may be more sensible- especially where heirs, estates or incomplete contract chains are involved and need to be investigated.

The same thinking applies to contractual reversions. Statutory termination is only one way rights move as agreements usually contain term limits, collection periods, performance conditions, territory restrictions and reversion triggers. These also need to captured cleanly in catalog systems from the 100s of PDF or photocopy amendments and side letters. For savvy rights acquirers the ability to move a deal often yields an outsized revenue impact, in my experience far more than Black Box claims. All this… from straightforward data management and robust processes!

A reversion that is not actioned is not just a legal oversight but money continuing to flow through the wrong pipe- money left on the table. A deal that has moved but has not been updated properly across registrations, LODs, CMO systems and administrator records creates months or years of leakage.

Good Data Management is not a Luxury

The music rights market has become much more sophisticated in how it talks about multiples, discount rates, streaming growth and decay curves. That sophistication needs to extend further into rights data management. A catalog model should not only ask what the asset earns, but also what could interrupt, reduce, redirect or renegotiate that income over time.

US termination rights are a good test of that discipline. They sit at the intersection of law, data, operations and hence valuation. They require legal interpretation, but they also require extremely basic operational competence: knowing the dates, knowing the agreements, knowing the parties, and knowing when action is required.

For funds, that is the lesson. It may not be glamorous work, but for catalogs acquired at high multiples it is exactly the kind of work that protects value.