Opinion of the Court
offenses. He served one prison term from 1989 to 2008, and another from 2012 to 2015.
Meanwhile, Butler (unbeknownst to Nealy) entered into an agreement with Warner Chappell Music, Inc. to license works from the Music Specialist catalog. And Warner Chappell found quite a few takers. One Music Specialist work (“Jam the Box”) was interpolated into Flo Rida’s hit song “In the Ayer,” which sold millions of copies and reached No. 9 on the Billboard chart. Use of that song was in turn licensed to several popular television shows, including “So You Think You Can Dance.” Other Music Specialist songs found their way into recordings by the Black Eyed Peas and Kid Sister.
In 2018, following his second prison stint, Nealy sued Warner Chappell for copyright infringement. Nealy alleged that he held the copyrights to Music Specialist’s songs and that Warner Chappell’s licensing activities infringed his rights. The infringing activity, Nealy claimed, dated back to 2008—so ten years before he brought suit. Nealy sought damages and profits for the alleged misconduct, as the Copyright Act authorizes. See §504.
For his claims to proceed, Nealy had to show they were timely. Under the Copyright Act, a plaintiff must file suit “within three years after the claim accrued.” §507(b). On one understanding of that limitations provision, a copyright claim “accrue[s]” when “an infringing act occurs.” Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U. S. 663, 670 (2014). So a plaintiff can complain about infringements going back only three years from the time he filed suit. If that rule governed, many of Nealy’s claims would be untimely, because they alleged infringements occurring as much as ten years earlier. But under an alternative view of the Act’s limitations provision, a claim accrues when “the plaintiff discovers, or with due diligence should have discovered,” the infringing act. Ibid., n. 4. That so-called discovery rule, used in the Circuit where Nealy sued, enables a diligent
