Newsweek, October 2026
Four justices recused themselves from a copyright dispute on Monday, according to an order list released by the Supreme Court. Those recusals mean the case does not have a quorum for a decision. The justices stepping aside from the case are Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The development comes as Supreme Court justices have faced scrutiny in recent years over recusals, ethics disclosures, and questions about when members of the court should step aside from cases involving potential conflicts of interest. The case in question was BMG Rights Management v. Vetter, a copyright dispute between BMG Rights Management and songwriter Cyril E. Vetter. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision in January allowing Vetter to reclaim worldwide rights to his 1960s hit “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love).”
The case’s appearance before the Supreme Court comes nine months after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling on January 12 in Vetter v. Resnik, in which Vetter brought a lawsuit against Robert Resnik and Resnik Music Group in order to reclaim worldwide rights to “Double Shot (Of My Baby’s Love).” The court’s decision at the time was significant, as it “upended those settled industry norms by holding that when an author who originally assigned away “exclusive rights…throughout the world for the full term of copyright protection” effectively exercises his statutory right to clawback the assigned U.S. rights, the clawback automatically reverts both U.S. and foreign rights,” the BMG Rights Management v. Vetter Supreme Court case alleged.
