Louisiana-born United States songwriter Cyril Vetter has filed a 37-page opposition to a United States Supreme Court petition from major music companies and BMG in the legal fight over worldwide copyright recapture rights to “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love)”.
The filing responds to a June petition that challenged a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision issued in January 2026. That ruling affirmed a district court finding that copyright terminations and recaptures apply to both United States and international rights.
Vetter’s opposition states that the major companies and BMG “purchased Resnik’s interest in this litigation solely to manufacture an opportunity to file a petition for certiorari,” referring to Resnik Music Group, the original litigant.
Vetter’s core arguments#
The filing argues that the Fifth Circuit’s decision does not create an emergency requiring Supreme Court intervention, does not overturn decades of precedent, and reflects current licensing trends in the music industry.
- The ruling does not present a copyright emergency that cannot await further review.
- It does not upend existing recapture precedent.
- It aligns with modern publishing agreements that return rights to authors after set periods.
“Petitioners try to depict this case as some sort of copyright emergency that cannot await further percolation. But publishers are doing just fine and will continue to thrive even if some of them have slightly less bargaining power with which to deprive authors of a fair return when their works become wildly successful.
“At least in the music industry, the Fifth Circuit’s decision actually reflects modern industry practice. In the streaming era, publishers have shifted dramatically toward licensing agreements that return to the authors all rights to their songs and recordings after 10-20 years, without regard to geography and without any need to invoke statutory termination,” the legal text reads.
The opposition also notes that “no other circuit and only one other district court has ever addressed the question presented,” and argues the issue should develop further before the Supreme Court steps in.
Even if the Supreme Court wants “to decide the termination question without the benefit of percolation in the circuits,” the filing says this “case is not a suitable vehicle.”
Worldwide ownership dispute#
Vetter holds half of the worldwide rights to “Double Shot,” purchased from the estate of co-writer Don Smith under the 1909 Copyright Act. That ownership is not challenged, so a Supreme Court ruling for the petitioners would not resolve the broader global ownership question.
“Even if Petitioners prevailed on the merits under § 304, that would do nothing but give them shared ownership with Vetter over any foreign copyright rights,” a relevant section sums up. “As co-owners, they could not unilaterally control Double Shot, despite their claim that they need such control to facilitate future licensing, and, indeed, to preserve the global copyright infrastructure.”
The filing adds: “Under their theory, if a U.S. author terminates the grant of (and recaptures) her U.S. copyright, every Berne signatory must still independently decide, under its own choice-of-law rules, whether to recognize that author as the party entitled to enforce the copyright within its own territory.”
A court in the United Kingdom, for instance, could conclude that U.K. law does not recognize U.S.-style termination and that the publisher remains the party entitled to enforce the copyright there.
“Conflicting results would remain precisely because there is no extraterritorial reach. That would result in a morass of competing ownership claims across jurisdictions, muddled further by the fact that exploitation of copyrights (such as by posting a work on the internet) so often transcends geographic borders in this day and age,” the filing states towards its end.
