Cher has won a long-running battle over royalties with Sonny Bono's widow

Mary had sought to terminate the rights to songs including I Got You Babe and The Beat Goes On, along with Cher's 50% share of the musical recordings she made with Sonny, but the judge ruled California contract law, which oversaw the divorce agreement, came ahead of the copyright termination power of the federal Copyright Act.

And according to Rolling Stone, the judge also ruled Cher retains her right to have her composition and record royalties paid directly to her, despite selling the rights to Iconic Artists Group in 2022.

Mary had wanted to deal directly with Irving Azoff's company and route the payments through the estate without the involvement of Cher but in his final judgement, the judge included the language sought by the 79-year-old singer, which stated her right to collect remained intact, along with her approval rights regarding "any and all third-party contracts with respect to the musical compositions."

Despite Mary's request that neither party be allowed to recover legal costs, the judge ruled Cher will be awarded costs as the prevailing party on almost every claim in the case.

Mary may recover costs on the one claim which she did win, which involved her authority to select the estate's royalties administrator, but Cher won language clarifying her right to object to a proposed administrator based on "the reasonableness of the administration fee and as to the administrator's credentials and qualifications."

Mary's lawyer has vowed to appeal the ruling.

Her attorney Daniel Schacht told Rolling Stone: "Each side prevailed on certain issues. We appreciate Judge Kronstadt's efforts in the case, but believe he got the law wrong on copyright terminations.

"It is important that authors and their heirs have the rights that Congress intended."

Sonny died in a skiing accident in 1998 at the age of 62, with his share of the publishing revenue passing to his heirs, and the legal case came about after Mary exercised a feature of copyright law that allows songwriters and their heirs to win back rights they have signed away in 2016, as she argued she now owned her late husband's publishing rights.

Royalties were then withdrawn from the Strong Enough hitmaker in 2021, prompting her to take legal action and her team insisting the termination clause used by Mary was "wholly inapplicable" to the royalty agreement set out in the former couple's divorce settlement.