17 U.S.C. § 203 — Termination of transfers and licenses granted by the author

(a) Conditions for Termination. For grants other than "work made for hire" grants, made by the author on or after January 1, 1978, and not made by will, the author (or their heirs) can cancel the grant later — but only under these rules: (1) Who can cancel: If one author signed the grant, that author can cancel it. If the author has died, the people who inherited more than half of that author's "termination interest" (explained in (2) below) can cancel it instead. If two or more authors jointly signed the grant, a majority of the living authors who signed it can cancel it. For any author who has died, their share of the termination interest can be used, as a group, by whoever holds more than half of that author's share. (2) Who owns a dead author's termination interest: (A) The widow or widower owns all of it — unless the author also has surviving children or grandchildren, in which case the widow or widower gets half. (B) The author's surviving children (and the surviving children of any child who has died) own all of it if there's no widow or widower — or half of it, split among them, if there is one. (C) Among children and grandchildren, shares are split "per stirpes" — each branch of the family gets a share based on how many of the author's children that branch represents. A dead child's share can only be used if a majority of that child's own children agree. (D) If there's no living widow, widower, child, or grandchild, the author's executor, administrator, personal representative, or trustee owns the whole termination interest. (3) When: The grant can be cancelled during a 5-year window that starts 35 years after the grant was signed. If the grant covers the right to publish the work, the window instead starts 35 years after publication under the grant, or 40 years after signing — whichever comes first. (4) How: The people cancelling must send the grant's holder (or their successor) a written notice, signed by enough of the owners described in (1) and (2). (A) The notice must state the termination date, which must fall within the 5-year window from (3), and it must be sent at least 2 years but no more than 10 years before that date. A copy must be recorded with the Copyright Office before the termination date, or the termination doesn't count. (B) The notice's form, content, and delivery must follow rules set by the Register of Copyrights. (5) Termination works even if some other agreement — including a promise to make a will or a future grant — tries to prevent it. (b) Effect of Termination. Once termination takes effect, the rights covered by the grant go back to the author, the authors, and the other people who owned termination interests under (a)(1) and (2) — including ones who didn't sign the notice — but with these limits: (1) A derivative work made under the grant before termination can still be used under the old grant's terms after termination. But no new derivative works based on the original work can be made after termination. (2) The rights that will revert become "vested" — locked in — on the date the termination notice was served, in the shares set out in (a)(1) and (2). (3) After termination, a new grant of the same rights is valid only if it's signed by the same number and share of owners that would have been needed to cancel the original grant. Once that happens, the new grant covers everyone whose rights vested — even people who didn't sign it. If someone who held vested rights has died, their legal representatives, heirs, or people named in their will stand in for them. (4) A new grant of the terminated rights is only valid if it's made after the termination takes effect. One exception: the people from (3) and the original grant-holder (or their successor) can agree to a future new grant once the termination notice has been served — even before termination is final. (5) Termination under this section only affects rights that come from federal copyright law. It doesn't touch any rights the author has under other federal, state, or foreign law. (6) If nobody terminates it under this section, the grant keeps going for however long the copyright lasts, unless the grant itself says otherwise.