Copyright Termination Rights: The 35-Year Rule That Lets US Artists Reclaim Masters and Songs

What Termination Rights Are

US copyright law contains a provision most recording contracts never mention: Section 203 of the Copyright Act gives authors the right to terminate any transfer or license of their copyright 35 years after they granted it. The right cannot be signed away. The statute applies "notwithstanding any agreement to the contrary," which means a clause in your contract waiving it is unenforceable.

Congress built this in deliberately. The theory is that a creator negotiating a first deal has no leverage and no way to know what the work will be worth. Thirty-five years later, they get a second bite.

For musicians this applies to two different copyrights:

Compositions (the song). If you assigned your publishing to a publisher in 1991, you can terminate that grant in 2026.

Sound recordings (the master). If you assigned your masters to a label in 1991, the same window applies — but labels fight this one, for reasons explained below.

The Timeline

Termination works on a strict, non-negotiable schedule:

Grants made on or after January 1, 1978 fall under Section 203. Older grants fall under a different provision (Section 304) with a 56-year clock.

The termination window is a five-year period that opens 35 years after the grant was signed. If the grant included the right of publication, the window opens 35 years after publication or 40 years after signing, whichever comes first.

Notice must be served on the current rights holder no less than 2 years and no more than 10 years before the termination date you choose.

The notice must be recorded with the US Copyright Office before the effective date.

Miss the window and the right is gone. For a recording released in 1992 under a 1991 contract, the window opens around 2027 and closes around 2032, which means notices need to go out now.

Why Labels Say It Doesn't Apply to Masters

Section 203 excludes works made for hire. If the label is the legal author of the recording, there was never a transfer to terminate.

Nearly every major-label recording contract since the late 1970s has included language declaring the recordings "works made for hire." Here's the problem for labels: under US law, a commissioned work only qualifies as a work made for hire if it falls into one of nine specific categories, and sound recordings are not on the list. (Congress briefly added them in 1999; the backlash from artists was so intense the amendment was repealed within a year.)

The fallback argument is that the artist was the label's employee. For a signed artist who chose the studio, hired the producer, and paid for the recordings out of a recoupable advance, that's a hard argument to make.

None of this has been definitively resolved. Class actions against Universal and Sony on exactly this issue have been working through the US courts since 2019. In practice, many artists who serve valid notices end up negotiating with the label rather than waiting on a ruling.

What You Actually Get Back

Termination has limits that catch people off guard:

US rights only. The grantee keeps whatever rights it holds outside the United States. For a global catalog, that's a significant carve-out.

Existing derivative works survive. A remix, compilation, or film that used the recording before termination can keep being exploited under the original terms. No new derivatives, though.

Multiple authors complicate things. For a band, a majority of the authors who signed the grant must join the termination.

Recoupment doesn't matter. Termination is not contingent on the label having recouped.

What This Means for Deals You're Signing Today

A contract you sign in 2026 won't reach its termination window until 2061. That feels irrelevant, but three things in the drafting matter now:

Work-for-hire language. It's in almost every label template. You usually can't remove it, but you can add a sentence confirming that if the recordings are found not to be works made for hire, the agreement operates as an assignment. That preserves your termination right without a fight over the label's boilerplate.

Governing law. Section 203 only helps if US copyright law governs the grant. The UK, Australia, and most other jurisdictions have no equivalent statutory termination right for recordings. Outside the US, your only reversion is contractual — which is why negotiating a reversion clause matters far more there.

Don't rely on it. Thirty-five years is a career. A 15-year contractual reversion beats a 35-year statutory one every time.

Songwriters: This Is Easier for You

Compositions don't suffer from the work-for-hire argument in the same way. A songwriter who assigned songs to a publisher under a standard writing agreement is the author, full stop. Publishers know this, and most now treat termination notices as routine. If you signed a publishing deal in the late 1980s or early 1990s, check whether your window is open.

How SoundDeal Handles This

SoundDeal flags work-made-for-hire language in every recording agreement and checks whether it's paired with an assignment fallback. The analysis also identifies the governing law of the contract so you know whether statutory termination will ever be available to you — or whether contractual reversion is the only protection you'll have.

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Find out whether your contract preserves your termination right. Analyze it with SoundDeal →