Cite as 60 F.4th 1325 (11th Cir. 2023)
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, D.C. Docket No. 1:18-cv-25474-RAR
Carlton Lamar-Phillip Talbot, Talbot Legal Consultants, Hollywood, FL, Peter G. Herman, Peter Herman, PA, Fort Lauderdale, FL, Chris Kleppin (argued), The Kleppin Firm, PA, Plantation, FL, Brady F. Williamson, Salzano Jackson & Lampert, LLP, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Karen L. Stetson, GrayRobinson, PA, Miami, FL, Jonathan L. Gaines, GrayRobinson, PA, Miami, FL, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before WILSON, JORDAN, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.
BRASHER, Circuit Judge:
This appeal requires us to answer a question of first impression about the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations that has divided our sister circuits. The Copyright Act has a three-year statute of limitations. 17 U.S.C. § 507(b). Under our circuit’s discovery accrual rule, claims about the ownership of a copyright are timely if a plaintiff files suit within three years of when the plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known that the defendant violated the plaintiff’s ownership rights. Invoking that discovery rule, the plaintiffs in this case—Sherman Nealy and Music Specialist, Inc.—filed this copyright action seeking, among other things, damages for infringement they allege occurred more than three years before they filed this lawsuit.
Despite our discovery rule, the defendants—Warner Chappell Music, Inc. and Artist Publishing Group, LLC—contend that the plaintiffs cannot recover damages for anything that happened more than three years before they filed suit. See Sohm v. Scholastic, Inc., 959 F.3d 39, 49–50 (2d Cir. 2020) (accepting this argument). That is, they do not dispute that a plaintiff can file suit over harm that occurred more than three years earlier; they just say that the plaintiff cannot recover any damages. This is so, they say, because the Supreme Court’s decision in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 572 U.S. 663, 134 S.Ct. 1962, 188 L.Ed.2d 979 (2014), bars retrospective relief for any infringement occurring earlier than three years from the date of a copyright lawsuit. In response, the plaintiffs contend that the defendants’ argument is contrary to the text of the Copyright Act and takes out of context Petrella’s statements about claims that were timely because of a different accrual rule. See Starz Ent., LLC v. MGM Domestic Television Distrib., LLC, 39
