The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on May 9th, 2024, in the case of Warner Chappell Music, Inc., et al., v. Nealy, et al., that plaintiffs in a copyright ownership dispute can recover damages beyond the three-year statute of limitations, even without a finding of fraud.
In a 6-3 ruling, Justice Kagan, joined by Justices Roberts, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Brown Jackson, stated that 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 Justices did not opine upon what is called the Discovery Rule, which allows for a copyright claim if the plaintiff sues within three years of discovering the infringing act. Specifically, the opinion stated that the Court was confining its review to the "disputed remedial issue, excluding consideration of the discovery rule." This effectively means that a copyright claim can be brought at almost any time, and the number of those lawsuits is likely to increase, given the new incentive of increased damages that may go back decades.
Justice Gorsuch, joined by Justices Thomas and Alito, wrote the dissent, criticizing the Court’s decision to not wait to address the Discovery Rule first. Justice Gorsuch posited that SCOTUS should have dismissed the case as "improvidently granted" and waited for a case that presented the question of whether the Copyright Act allows for a discovery rule.
