A federal judge refused to dismiss Cher’s case against Mary Bono — a messy mix of royalties, termination rights and divorce law.
started performing together in 1964 and married in 1967, rising to fame with major hits like “I Got You Babe,” “The Beat Goes On” and “Baby Don’t Go.” But the pair split up in 1974, finalizing their divorce with a settlement agreement in 1978. Under that deal, Sonny retained ownership of their music rights, but Cher was granted a half-share of all royalties.
Bono died in 1998 as the result of skiing accident, leaving Mary in control of those copyrights. And in 2016, she invoked the termination right — a provision of the federal Copyright Act that allows creators or their heirs to win back control of rights they signed away decades prior. Mary sent such notices to Sonny and Cher’s publishers, taking back full control of those copyrights.
Five years later, Cher filed her lawsuit — seeking a ruling the divorce agreement was still in effect and that she was still owed her 50% cut of royalties, regardless of who owns the copyrights now. Mary then fired back a few months later, arguing that the case should be dismissed. Her lawyers said that termination rights were designed to trump all pre-existing agreements, including a divorce agreement.
“Cher’s position would subvert Congress’ intent in enacting the copyright termination provisions: to ensure that authors and authors’ heirs, not grantees or ex-spouses, would benefit from the extended term of copyright,” Bono’s attorneys wrote in December 2021.In Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Kronstadt denied that motion when it comes to the copyrights for Sonny’s underlying musical compositions, citing language in the divorce agreement that such royalties would be owed “from all sources perpetually.
The judge did dismiss Cher’s lawsuit to the extent that it deals with royalties from any recording rights that had been terminated by Mary, since Judge Kronstadt said those provisions of the divorce agreement were tied to specific record deals that were no longer in existence. But the extent to which Mary’s termination notices actually went to record companies is unclear; earlier filings in the case only indicated that such notices has gone to publishers.
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