The article.

Chaos for Who?

The music industry loves to talk about artists.

It loves to celebrate artists.

It loves to hand out awards, sponsor songwriter camps, run social media campaigns about creativity, and tell the world that music starts with the creator.

Until the creator asks for something back. Then suddenly the language changes.

Now it’s not about art. It’s not about fairness. It’s not about creators. It’s about “chaos.”

The major labels and BMG have petitioned the United States Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that would allow songwriter Cyril Vetter to reclaim worldwide rights to a song he wrote more than sixty years ago.

And their argument is fascinating. Not because it’s convincing. Because it exposes exactly how the industry thinks.

The labels claim that if songwriters can reclaim worldwide copyrights under U.S. termination law, it will create uncertainty, confusion and disruption throughout the music business.

Chaos.

That’s the word.

Chaos.

Funny how the same industry that spent decades telling creators to sign away global rights in perpetuity is suddenly worried about fairness and stability.

The same companies that built billion-dollar catalog empires from contracts signed generations ago now want us to believe they are protecting the music ecosystem.

Protecting whom?

Certainly not the songwriter. The songwriter is the one who created the asset. The songwriter is the one who took the risk. The songwriter is the one whose work still generates value decades later.

Yet when a court finally interprets the law in a way that potentially benefits creators, the industry’s first instinct isn’t celebration.

It’s litigation.

The hypocrisy becomes even more obvious when you look at history.

Labels routinely tell artists that contracts are sacred. Deals are deals. You signed it. Live with it.

Except when the labels don’t like the outcome.

Then contracts, precedents and long-standing interpretations suddenly become flexible.

Then the legal teams arrive. Then the lobbying starts. Then the scare campaign begins.

We’re told the sky will fall. We’re told investment will disappear. We’re told the business will collapse.

We’ve seen this movie before.

Every technological shift was supposedly going to destroy music.

Home taping. CD burning. MP3s. Streaming. TikTok. Now songwriter rights.

The industry’s prediction record on catastrophe is so bad that “chaos” should probably be treated as a marketing term rather than a legal argument.

Because let’s be honest.

If a songwriter reclaiming rights after half a century creates disruption, maybe the disruption isn’t the problem.

Maybe the underlying business model is.

The labels argue that billions of dollars and countless agreements were built around the assumption that foreign rights remain permanently with publishers.

That may be true.

But an industry building its future around assumptions doesn’t magically transform those assumptions into justice.

There was a time when artists couldn’t own masters.

There was a time when musicians signed contracts they barely understood.

There was a time when labels controlled manufacturing, distribution, promotion and access to audiences.

That world is disappearing.

And perhaps what we’re seeing in Vetter v. Resnik isn’t chaos. Perhaps we’re seeing correction.

The most revealing part of this case isn’t the legal argument. It’s the language.

The labels describe the songwriter’s position as a fringe theory. Yet a federal appeals court agreed with it.

Creator groups support it. And the logic is straightforward.

If termination rights exist to give creators a second chance at ownership, why should that second chance stop at a national border?

Why should a songwriter get half the apple?

The answer seems obvious.

Because half the apple is still enough for the labels to keep the other half.

That’s what this fight is really about.

Control.

Not creativity. Not fairness. Not artists.

Control.

The irony is that the music business constantly tells young creators that ownership matters.

Keep your rights. Build your catalog. Think long term. Become an entrepreneur.

Until those same principles start applying to creators whose songs were written decades ago.

Then ownership suddenly becomes dangerous. Then ownership becomes disruptive. Then ownership becomes chaos.

The labels want everyone to believe they’re defending stability.

What they’re actually defending is a system that has benefited them enormously for generations.

A system where rights flow one way. A system where creators are encouraged to surrender ownership but discouraged from reclaiming it. A system where fairness is celebrated in speeches but challenged in court.

If the Supreme Court ultimately hears the case, the decision will affect far more than one song.

It will answer a much bigger question. Who does copyright actually exist to serve?

The corporations that acquired it.

Or the people who created it.

Because if reclaiming your own work after sixty years is considered chaos, perhaps the real chaos was the arrangement that existed before.