Four Justices Sat Out, and “Double Shot” Writer Cyril Vetter Keeps His Worldwide Rights

The U.S. Supreme Court on October 19, 2026, let stand a Fifth Circuit ruling that Cyril Vetter, co-writer of the 1962 song “Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love),” won back his rights worldwide, not just in the U.S., when he terminated a 1963 publishing grant. The Court never reached the merits: four justices sat out, leaving no quorum.

The order in BMG Rights Management v. Vetter (No. 25-1391) is one paragraph. “Because the Court lacks a quorum,” and the remaining justices believed the case could not be heard at the next Term, the judgment is affirmed under 28 U.S.C. §2109 “with the same effect as upon affirmance by an equally divided court.” Justices Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Barrett and Jackson “took no part.” The order gives no reason.

How did a quorum problem decide a copyright fight?

Section 2109 says that when the Court lacks a quorum of qualified justices and a majority of those left think it cannot be heard the next term, the Court must enter an order affirming the lower court. Music Business Worldwide reports that in March 2026 four publishers, UMG's Capitol CMG, Sony's Essential Music Publishing, Warner's Warner-Tamerlane Publishing and BMG Rights Management, bought Robert Resnik's asserted stake in the song and replaced him as defendants so they could take the case to the Supreme Court. Their petition, from a legal team led by Paul Clement, was filed on June 11.

Why the four stepped aside is not on the record. MBW points out that BMG's parent, Bertelsmann, also owns Penguin Random House, which has published books by all four, and that the same four plus Justice Alito stepped aside from a copyright case against Ta-Nehisi Coates in which Bertelsmann was a defendant. That is MBW's reporting, not the Court's explanation.

One of the decade's biggest songwriter-rights questions was decided by an absence of votes, and the answer binds federal courts in only three states.

What are termination rights, in plain words?

The Copyright Act lets writers who signed away a song take it back after decades. For grants signed before 1978, the five-year window opens 56 years after the copyright began (17 U.S.C. §304(c)); for grants signed in 1978 or later, it opens 35 years after the grant (§203). The Copyright Office says notice must be served “no less than two years and no more than ten years before the effective date,” and works made for hire cannot be terminated.

Vetter and the late Donald Smith assigned “Double Shot” to Windsong Music Publishers in 1963 “in exchange for one dollar,” according to the Fifth Circuit. Vetter served his notice in 2019, effective May 3, 2022. When Resnik, whose Resnik Music Group bought Windsong in 2019, kept claiming rights outside the U.S., Vetter sued in Louisiana federal court in 2023. Chief Judge Shelly Dick ruled in January 2025 that he owned the reclaimed rights worldwide, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed on January 12, 2026.

The fight was over one line in the statute: termination affects only rights “that arise under this title” and “in no way affects rights arising under any other Federal, State, or foreign laws.” Publishers read that as U.S.-only. As Gowling WLG summarizes it, the Fifth Circuit found that a U.S. author's global interest arises under U.S. law, with no geographic limit in the termination provisions. Reuters reports the publishers told the Court the ruling “unsettled 50 years of industry practice.” Vetter's lawyers urged the Court not to take the case in a September 14 brief, and Reuters reports they called those concerns overblown.

Is it the law everywhere now?

No. Because the Court did not rule on the merits, the outcome sets no nationwide precedent, as MBW notes. The Fifth Circuit's opinion binds federal courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Another circuit could rule the other way. Abroad, Gowling notes that under the Berne Convention protection is governed by the law of the country where it is claimed, and MBW reports Reed Smith partners' view that foreign courts and licensees may apply their own law.

What should songwriters and catalog buyers take from it?

For writers with pre-1978 grants, the worldwide argument now has an appellate win behind it that binds courts in the Fifth Circuit, and notices must still land two to ten years before the effective date. For buyers, the value of an old catalog that still drives streaming rests partly on foreign income that a termination could now pull back to the writer. Lenders and advance funds that price future royalties carry the same question. Until another circuit or a full Court speaks, every catalog deal is pricing a question the Supreme Court never answered.