In a landmark decision, the Fifth Circuit issued its long-awaited ruling in Vetter v. Resnik, F.4th, Case No. 25-30108 (5th Cir. 2026), holding that copyright termination and renewal rights under the U.S. Copyright Act may have a worldwide effect. This ruling upends longstanding industry practice and, at least within the Fifth Circuit (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas), provides rare appellate guidance on the territorial reach of those rights – an issue that has remained largely untested in the courts since the 1909 Act.
I. Legal framework under the Copyright Act
The Copyright Act 1976, 17 U.S.C. Sections 101 et seq., provides authors and their statutorily defined heirs the right to terminate prior grants of copyright transfers under two provisions: Section 304(c), which applies to copyrights subsisting before 1978, and Section 203, which applies to grants made by the author on or after January 1, 1978. Section 304(c) operates against the backdrop of the maximum copyright duration for pre-1978 works: 95 years from the date of publication, consisting of a 28-year initial term plus a 67-year renewal term.
Sections 304(a)–(b) of the Copyright Act automatically vest copyright ownership in the applicable owners for the renewal term for pre-1978 works. For works created on and after January 1, 1978, the copyright term is life of the author plus 70 years.
Termination may be exercised by the author(s) who executed the original grant or by statutorily defined heirs, depending on which section of the Copyright Act applies. Termination rights do not apply to works made for hire or to grants made by will, and must be exercised according to strict procedural requirements. Until Vetter, any purported termination affected only rights with respect to the United States.
II. The Fifth Circuit’s decision in Vetter
A. Background and timeline
In 1962, songwriters Cyril E. Vetter and Don Smith wrote Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love) (the Composition). In 1963, they assigned their entire interests in the Composition to Windsong Music Publishers, Inc. The assignment granted worldwide rights for the full term of copyright protection, including any renewal term available under the 1909 Copyright Act.
Smith died in a plane crash in 1972. After the initial 28-year term expired, Smith’s heirs automatically succeeded to Smith’s 50% renewal interest under Sections 304(a)–(b) of the Copyright Act (Smith’s Renewal Interest), notwithstanding the prior grant to Windsong. Windsong retained Vetter’s renewal interest under the 1963 assignment. Vetter Communications Corporation later purchased Smith’s Renewal Interest from Smith’s heirs. Windsong and Vetter Communications thereafter each held a 50% interest in the Composition in the United States.
B. Termination notice and litigation
In 2019, Vetter served a termination notice on Windsong under Section 304(c), seeking to terminate the 1963 grant and recapture his interest in the Composition. That same year, Windsong sold its assets to Resnik Music Group. When the termination became effective in 2022, Vetter learned that Resnik continued to claim an ownership interest in the Composition outside the United States. Vetter filed suit, seeking a declaration of sole worldwide copyright ownership. The district court granted summary judgment for Vetter, holding that he owned worldwide rights based on (i) his ownership of Smith’s Renewal Interest, and (ii) his recaptured interest following termination (Vetter’s Recaptured Interest). The Fifth Circuit affirmed the decision.
C. The Fifth Circuit’s statutory analysis: Section 304(c)(6)(E)
The Fifth Circuit focused on Section 304(c)(6)(E), which provides that termination “affects only those rights covered by the grant that arise under this title, and in no way affects rights arising under any other Federal, State, or foreign laws.” The court held that “arise under this title” means termination applies to copyrights granted under the U.S. Copyright Act, and excludes rights granted under other federal, state, or foreign laws. Rejecting Resnik’s argument that foreign rights are inherently separate and insulated from U.S. termination, the court emphasized that the relevant provisions contain “no explicit geographic limitation” on either termination or renewal. Because Vetter’s 1963 grant arose under U.S. law, termination recaptured everything conveyed by that grant, including foreign exploitation rights. For the same reason, the court concluded renewal rights were worldwide in scope. In so doing, the court treated copyright as a single global interest rather than a set of territorially distinct rights.
D. Policy rationale and “industry norms”
The court held that a non-geographical interpretation of Section 304(c) served the statutory purpose of protecting authors from unremunerative early transfers driven by unequal bargaining power and the uncertainty of a work’s value at the time of the grant. It further accepted the district court’s conclusion that “a nongeographical interpretation” was consistent with industry norms. Relying on amicus submissions that contractual reversions commonly returned all rights granted, the court reasoned that Congress did not intend for Section 304(c)(6)(E) to apply only to U.S. rights.
E. Treatment of contrary authority and treatises
The court declined to follow several cases from other circuits adopting a domestic-only approach to termination or renewal, including Siegel v. Warner Bros. Entertainment, 542 F. Supp. 2d 1098 (C.D. Cal. 2008), Clancy v. Jack Ryan Enterprises, No. ELH-17-3371 (D. Md. Feb. 10, 2021), and Fred Ahlert Music Corp. v. Warner/Chappell, 155 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 1998). It also declined to follow leading treatises, including Nimmer and Patry. The court characterized those authorities as persuasive only and reasoned that they did not directly address the territorial scope of termination or renewal under the Copyright Act.
F. Treaty reasoning and the renewal-rights holding
The court also considered the effect of the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention (UCC). It concluded that the district court’s worldwide treatment of Vetter’s Recaptured Interest was “reconcilable with the principles of national treatment and territoriality.” It reasoned that copyright is “granted” under the U.S. Copyright Act and “recognized” by member states pursuant to the Berne Convention and the UCC.
Applying similar reasoning to renewal under the 1909 Act, the court held that renewal vesting likewise had a worldwide effect. It emphasized the author-protective purpose of the renewal scheme and the absence of any territorial limitation in the statutory text. Worldwide renewal, the court held, vested the recipient with the full bundle of rights originally granted, not merely U.S. rights. The court treated the cases relied on by Resnik as inapplicable on the basis that they did not address the geographical scope of renewal.
III. Industry implications
With the Fifth Circuit’s ruling still fresh, the decision has already drawn significant attention across the music industry. The decision is likely to prompt a wave of U.S. litigation testing (i) whether Vetter was correctly decided, and (ii) if so, how far its reasoning extends beyond the Fifth Circuit. Here are some things to consider:
A. Is Vetter binding?
It depends on where a dispute is litigated.
As a decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, Vetter is binding only on federal courts within the Fifth Circuit (Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas). Even within the Fifth Circuit, the decision could be revisited through rehearing en banc or overturned on review by the U.S. Supreme Court. But for now, authors or their statutory heirs whose disputes fall within the Fifth Circuit – for example, because of venue and personal jurisdiction (or a forum-selection clause) – will be keen to exercise their right to recapture a broader array of rights than were previously available. Conversely, current rights-holders will want to avoid being domiciled within the Fifth Circuit (which, for a company, is considered its place of incorporation or principal place of business) and avoid establishing sufficient contacts within the Fifth Circuit such that exercising jurisdiction there would be inconsistent with traditional notions of due process and fairness. More broadly, we can expect increased focus on forum selection, corporate structuring, and litigation strategy when termination notices are served.
The decision may also incentivize races to the courthouse. Outside of its bounds, Vetter is considered a “persuasive” authority in other federal circuits, meaning that other courts can, but are not obligated to, follow its holding. Because termination and renewal rights arise under federal law, authors and statutory heirs may seek declaratory judgment relief in Fifth Circuit federal courts to secure the benefit of Vetter’s interpretation of the Copyright Act. Conversely, current rights-holders may attempt to preempt such filings by initiating actions in New York or California courts grounded in contract, accounting, or ownership theories. While forum-selection clauses can significantly affect where disputes are litigated, they may not fully eliminate this risk where claims are framed as statutory ownership disputes rather than contract claims.
We can expect similar cases to be filed nationwide, especially in circuits that see a high volume of copyright-related matters, such as the Ninth Circuit (California) and the Second Circuit (New York). The Fifth Circuit’s rejection of persuasive authority from other circuits suggests a circuit split is increasingly likely, increasing the chances that the Supreme Court will ultimately address the issue.
B. Can Vetter be applied retroactively?
Likely yes, subject to important limitations.
Vetter is not new legislation, but a judicial interpretation of existing provisions of the Copyright Act. As such, it reflects the Fifth Circuit’s view of what the statute has meant since enactment, rather than a change in the law. Absent further review by the Supreme Court or intervening legislation, courts within the Fifth Circuit are required to apply Vetter’s interpretation of the statute to disputes properly before them, including disputes involving terminations that became effective prior to the decision.
The key constraint on such an application is finality, not timing. Judicial constructions of a statute apply to cases as they arise but do not reopen matters that have been conclusively resolved. As a result, Vetter does not disturb final judgments, settlements and releases, executed regrants, or situations barred by statutes of limitation or equitable doctrines, such as laches or estoppel. By contrast, Vetter may be applied in live disputes, declaratory judgment actions, and ownership questions that have not previously been resolved by final adjudication.
For example, where a prior termination resulted in the grantee relinquishing U.S. rights only, without a final judgment, settlement and release, or post-termination regrant addressing foreign rights, disputes concerning the scope of non-U.S. rights may remain unresolved and subject to adjudication under Vetter.
This distinction between finality and timing is consistent with Supreme Court precedent holding that judicial interpretations of federal statutes apply to pending and future cases, even where the underlying statutory events predate the decision. See Harper v. Va. Dep’t of Taxation, 509 U.S. 86 (1993); Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 511 U.S. 298 (1994).
C. Implications for non-U.S. authors and non-U.S. rights
Even if U.S. courts were to follow Vetter, the decision does not necessarily determine ownership of non-U.S. copyrights. Taking the United Kingdom as an example, under UK law, copyright is a statutory property right, primarily governed by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, that arises automatically when eligible work is created. UK copyright exists because UK law confers it, not because a foreign legal system reallocates rights in respect of the same work. Accordingly, a change in ownership under a foreign statutory mechanism does not, without more, reallocate UK copyright as a matter of UK law.
In English private international law, a further distinction is required between (i) the law governing whether a given national copyright is capable of assignment, and on what terms, and (ii) the law governing the construction and effect of the parties’ contract. As Arnold and Ginsburg observe, “the question whether, and to what extent, title to copyright is assignable depends on the law under which the relevant copyright was created”1 (i.e., the lex loci protectionis), whereas the question whether title has in fact been assigned under an English-law contract depends on English principles of contractual interpretation.
Even if a U.S. court recognizes a valid termination, the effect of that termination is not automatically global. Foreign copyright ownership remains governed by foreign law (including the relevant forum’s choice-of-law rules), and foreign courts may decline to treat U.S. termination as determinative of ownership of local rights where that would conflict with domestic statute, mandatory rules on alienability, or enforceable contractual arrangements.
The rationale deployed by the court - treating copyright as a single global interest that “arises under” the U.S. Copyright Act and is then “recognised” abroad under Berne - could have uncomfortable corollaries and may be deployed defensively by publishers and other rights holders. On that logic, it could be argued that works originating under foreign law do not benefit from U.S. termination rights at all, including in respect of U.S. exploitation. This is an important consideration for non-U.S. authors evaluating Vetter, which should not necessarily be viewed as an unqualified expansion of termination leverage.
It remains to be seen whether Vetter ultimately improves the position of foreign authors in the United States, or whether it instead introduces uncertainty that may, in practice, constrain or complicate their ability to rely on U.S. copyright protection.
D. Treaty limits and territoriality concerns
The Fifth Circuit’s reliance on the Berne Convention to support the idea of a “single overarching international master copyright” capable of global recapture is difficult to reconcile with the orthodox principle of lex loci protectionis, reflected in Article 5(2) of the Convention, under which questions of the scope of protection and remedies are governed exclusively by the law of the country in which protection is claimed. Ownership and transfer issues are not harmonized by the Berne Convention and must be determined by the relevant domestic law, including domestic private international law rules.
Moreover, U.S. appellate authority in Itar-Tass Russian News Agency v. Russian Kurier, Inc., 153 F.3d 82 (2d Cir. 1998), rejects treating the Berne Convention as an independent source of enforceable rights or as supplying general rules of copyright ownership. The court emphasised that no right or interest may be claimed “by virtue of” the Convention itself, and that the Convention cannot be used to expand or reduce rights under domestic copyright law. It also recognized that, aside from a narrow provision relating to cinematographic works, the Berne Convention does not purport to settle questions of copyright ownership, which remain matters for national law.
Against this background, the Berne Convention is better understood as a treaty that ensures recognition and baseline protection through national laws, rather than as a treaty that converts copyright into a single global asset or requires contracting states to give effect to foreign statutory reversion mechanisms (such as U.S. termination).
IV. Conclusion
As is often the case with landmark decisions from a federal court of appeals, significant uncertainty remains as to the decision’s wider impact on the entertainment industry. For now, one apparent certainty is that authors and statutory heirs positioned to benefit from Fifth Circuit law will likely seek to recapture a broader array of rights that, until now, were generally assumed to fall outside the scope of U.S. copyright termination and renewal provisions. Whether other circuits (or the Supreme Court) agree to take up this important issue and join Vetter in shifting the status quo remains to be seen. The only certainty now is more litigation – and a high-stakes fight over whether Vetter rewrites the termination playbook nationwide.
1. Richard Arnold & Jane C. Ginsburg, Foreign Contracts and U.S. Copyright Termination Rights: What Law Applies? – Comment, 43 COLUM. J. L. & ARTS. 437 (2020). Available at scholarship.law.columbia.edu.
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