Fifth Circuit Interprets Copyright Termination and Renewal Provisions to Apply Worldwide
January 20, 2026
In recent years, the U.S. Supreme Court has relied increasingly on the presumption against extraterritoriality to determine the geographic scope of federal statutes. This presumption seems particularly strong for intellectual property statutes. Most recently, the Court strictly applied the presumption against extraterritoriality to the Lanham Act (the federal trademark statute) in Abitron Austria GmbH v. Hetronic International, Inc. (2023), holding that the statute applies only to domestic conduct.
But there are exceptions to this trend. In Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2013), the Supreme Court adopted a “nongeographical” reading of the Copyright Act’s first-sale provision, holding that the first sale of copyrighted works abroad exhausts the U.S. copyright. In Impression Products, Inc. v. Lexmark International, Inc. (2017), the Court took a similar approach to exhaustion under the Patent Act. And in WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp. (2018), the Court held that a plaintiff who can prove infringement under the Patent Act may recover profits from sales that it lost worldwide.
On January 12, 2026, the Fifth Circuit recognized another exception to the trend of interpreting intellectual property statutes territorially. In Vetter v. Resnik, the court of appeals held that the termination and renewal provisions of the Copyright Act apply to U.S. copyright rights throughout the world.
A Double Shot
At issue in this case, was ownership of the copyright for the song “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love),” which Cyril Vetter and Donald Smith wrote in the summer of 1962. The next year, they assigned their copyright interests in the song to Windsong Music Publishers in exchange for one dollar. A recording of the song by the Swinging Medallions climbed to #17 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1966, at which point Windsong registered the copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. The registration gave Windsong federal copyright protection for twenty-eight years with possible renewal for an additional twenty-eight years.
When the original term of the copyright ended in 1994, Vetter’s renewal rights transferred to Windsong under the 1963 assignment. Smith, however, had died in 1972, which meant that his heirs obtained his renewal rights. In 1996, Vetter Communications Corporation (VCC), a holding company for Vetter’s assets, purchased the renewal rights owned by Smith’s heirs, while Windsong assigned half its interest to another company, Lyresong Music. At this point, then, VCC owned 50% of the renewal copyright, Windsong owned 25%, and Lyresong owned 25%.
A provision of the Copyright Act allows an author to terminate the assignment of a copyright to another person, and in 2019 Vetter sent Windsong and Lyresong a notice terminating their rights under the 1963 assignment. Windsong’s owner, however, informed Vetter that the company had been sold to Robert Resnik. In 2023, Vetter and VCC brought a declaratory judgment action in the Middle District of Louisiana, asking the district court to declare them the sole owners of Double Shot’s copyright throughout the world, which the district court did.
On appeal, Resnik argued that both the Copyright Act’s termination provision and its renewal provision are limited to rights in the United States and did not affect his rights abroad.
The Termination Provision
Section 304(c) of the Copyright Act of 1976 provides:
In the case of any copyright subsisting in either its first or renewal term on January 1, 1978, … the exclusive or nonexclusive grant of a transfer or license of the renewal copyright or any right under it, executed before January 1, 1978, by [an author or heir] is subject to termination.
Section 304(c)(6)(E) further provides that “[t]ermination of a grant under this subsection 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 latter provision, Resnik argued, showed that Vetter’s notice of termination did not affect foreign rights. But the Fifth Circuit disagreed. Writing for the panel, Judge Carl E. Stewart focused on the phrase “arise under this title.” He noted that in Kirtsaeng, mentioned above, the Supreme Court adopted a nongeographic interpretation of the phrase “lawfully made under this title” in the Copyright Act’s first-sale provision. The Supreme Court explained that “made under this title” meant made “in accordance with” the Copyright Act, without geographic limitation, so that the first-sale doctrine applied to sales outside the United States. Judge Stewart reasoned that the same was true of § 304(c)’s termination provision, which applies to copyrights granted in accordance with the Copyright Act (but not “other Federal, State, or foreign laws”), even if those rights extend abroad.
Congress adopted the Copyright Act’s termination provision, Judge Stewart explained, because the value of a work often cannot be determined until the work is exploited, placing authors like Vetter and Smith in a position of lesser bargaining power. “Interpreting section 304(c)(6)(E) as enabling Vetter to recapture the exclusive rights to Double Shot throughout the world,” the judge continued, “would safeguard against an unremunerative transfer and help correct for the unequal bargaining power between Vetter and Windsong.” Authors and artists’ rights organizations had filed amicus briefs noting “that the music publishing industry routinely manages the contractual transfer of foreign rights due to statutory termination,” which is consistent with industry norms.
Resnik also argued that reading the termination provision to apply to rights outside the United States would conflict with the national treatment and territoriality principles of the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention. But Judge Stewart explained that these conventions simply require copyrights issued under the laws of one country to be recognized by other countries. The rights that Vetter assigned in 1963, and that were recognized under the conventions, “would continue to be recognized across the globe consistent with the principle of national treatment when Vetter recaptured them upon termination.” Addressing the principle of territoriality, Judge Stewart turned back to the federal presumption against extraterritoriality. Distinguishing between ownership and infringement, he suggested that the presumption applies to questions of ownership with less force (or perhaps not at all).
The Renewal Provision
The Fifth Circuit also addressed the geographic scope of the Copyright Act’s renewal provision. This provision was relevant to the 50% of the copyright that Smith’s heirs renewed in 1994 and that VCC purchased thereafter. Although the renewal occurred in 1994, after the effective date of the Copyright Act of 1976, the court focused on the language of the Copyright Act of 1909.
Resnik argued that the rights of Smith’s heirs to renew his copyright applied only to rights in the United States, but the court disagreed. “[T]he renewal provision makes no mention of geographical limitations to the scope of renewal rights,” Judge Stewart noted. Moreover, “[o]nly by recapturing the exclusive rights to Double Shot throughout the world rather than recapturing U.S. rights alone would Vetter Communications Corporation receive fair remuneration consistent with the purpose of the Copyright Act of 1909.” Again, the court saw no conflict between the Act and either the Berne Convention and the Universal Copyright Convention.
Conclusion
Although the Fifth Circuit addressed the geographic scope of the Copyright Act’s termination and renewal provisions, it did not address the more fundamental question of the extent to which U.S. copyrights apply abroad in the first place. This was no doubt because both parties wanted to exercise such rights and it was in neither’s interests to argue that they did not exist.
But this also points to a fundamental contradiction in the defendant Resnik’s arguments about extraterritoriality. On the one hand, he argued that the Copyright Act’s termination and renewal provisions apply only to rights in the United States. But, on the other hand, he also seems to have been claiming rights abroad based on the Copyright Act. To the extent the foreign rights that Resnik claimed flowed from the Copyright Act, it makes perfect sense that the Act’s termination and renewal provisions would limit those rights. One cannot claim extraterritorial rights while ignoring limitations on those rights.