A federal judge has dismissed Salt-N-Pepa’s lawsuit against Universal Music Group (UMG), ruling that the hip-hop duo did not plausibly establish ownership of the copyrights and master recordings at the center of the dispute.
On Thursday, Jan. 8, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote granted UMG’s motion to dismiss the filing in the Southern District of New York, according to court docs obtained by PEOPLE, thereby closing the case brought by Cheryl James and Sandra Denton, known famously as Salt-N-Pepa, who had sued the label in May 2025 seeking to reclaim rights to their early sound recordings.
In dismissing the lawsuit, Judge Cote ruled that the artists could not reclaim the recordings under the Copyright Act because they never owned — and therefore never transferred — the copyrights they were seeking to terminate.