Page:Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy.pdf/2

Syllabus

remedial sections. But those provisions merely state that an infringer is liable either for statutory damages or for the owner’s actual damages and the infringer’s profits. See §504(a)–(c). There is no time limit on monetary recovery. So a copyright owner possessing a timely claim is entitled to damages for infringement, no matter when the infringement occurred.

The Court’s decision in Petrella also does not support a three-year damages cap. There, the Court noted that the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations allows plaintiffs “to gain retrospective relief running only three years back from” the filing of a suit. 572 U. S., at 672. Taken out of context, that line might seem to address the issue here. But that statement merely described how the limitations provision worked in Petrella, where the plaintiff had long known of the defendant’s infringing conduct and so could not avail herself of the discovery rule to sue for infringing acts more than three years old. The Court did not go beyond the case’s facts to say that even if the limitations provision allows a claim for an earlier infringement, the plaintiff may not obtain monetary relief.

Unlike the plaintiff in Petrella, Nealy has invoked the discovery rule to bring claims for infringing acts occurring more than three years before he filed suit. The Court granted certiorari in this case on the assumption that such claims may be timely under the Act’s limitations provision. If Nealy’s claims are thus timely, he may obtain damages for them. Pp. 4–7.

60 F. 4th 1325, affirmed.

Kagan, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Gorsuch, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Thomas and Alito, JJ., joined.