Supreme Court To Weigh In On Damages For Copyright Infringement

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Author: Ms Nicole Bergstrom
• Law Firm: Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz
• Published date: 02 October 2023

Back in March I posted about the deepening Circuit Court split on how far back a plaintiff could look for damages in a copyright infringement action (here).

As you'll recall, the Second Circuit, in a case I litigated with my colleague, Ned Rosenthal, called Sohm v. Scholastic Inc., 959 F.3d 39 (2d Cir. 2020), had held that the Supreme Court in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663 (2014) "explicitly delimited damages to the three years prior to the commencement of a copyright infringement action." Just before my post, the Eleventh Circuit, in Nealy v. Warner Chappell Music, Inc., No. 21-13232, 2023 WL 2230267 (11th Cir. Feb. 27, 2023), had joined the Ninth Circuit in disagreeing with Sohm and finding that there was no limit to how far back a successful copyright plaintiff could look for damages, provided the claim was timely filed.

Nealy was brought by Sherman Nealy and his company, Music Specialist, Inc. Nealy sued in 2018, claiming...