Salt-N-Pepa ask appeals court to reinstate copyright ownership case
Inductees Sandra Denton aka Pepa and Cheryl James aka Salt of hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa perform onstage during the 2025 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Peacock Theater on Nov. 8, 2025, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for RRHOF)
Hip-hop group Salt-N-Pepa have asked an appellate court to reinstate their copyright reclamation lawsuit against their record label and to “push it” back to the trial judge.
Courthouse News Service reported Tuesday that lawyers for the group argued before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New York that Senior U.S. District Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York erred when she dismissed their case in January.
Cote had granted the Universal Music Group’s motion to dismiss, ruling that the group—comprising singers Cheryl James and Sandra Denton—had given ownership of their first four albums to their original label and had never owned the copyrights themselves.
Salt-N-Pepa’s lawyer, Richard Busch, argued before the appellate panel that the lower court had not applied the law properly.
“We are applying fundamental principles of law and the actual language of the agreements, while the district court and UMG have done the opposite, ignoring crucial language and definitions of the agreement,” said Busch, who previously represented singer-songwriter and musician Marvin Gaye’s family against singer-songwriter Robin Thicke and musician Pharrell Williams in a landmark copyright case involving Thicke’s 2013 song “Blurred Lines.”
The label, on the other hand, argued that the decision should stand.
“Judge Cote correctly granted UMG’s motion to dismiss because, under the plain language of the agreement annexed to the complaint, there was no grant of copyright executed by plaintiffs—a fundamental requirement of the termination provision of the Copyright Act,” said Richard Mandel, an attorney with Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman.
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