In the Wake of Raging Bull:
A Growing Circuit Split Since Petrella v. MGM
In the 2014 Petrella v. MGM case, the Supreme Court decided that laches did not bar a copyright claim brought within three years of infringement. In so doing, the Court noted that under the Copyright Act’s “separate accrual” rule, a plaintiff can recover damages only for infringements that occurred within three years of suing. In the wake of Petrella, the Courts of Appeals are divided about whether the three-year damages bar also applies to infringement claims that accrue under the discovery rule. In 2020, the Second Circuit, in Sohm v. Scholastic, Inc, ruled that it does; but last year the Ninth Circuit, in Starz Entertainment, LLC v. MGM Domestic Television Distribution LLC, came to the contrary conclusion. And in February of this year, the Eleventh Circuit, in Nealy v. Warner Chappell Music, Inc., joined the Ninth Circuit on its side of the circuit split.
Please join us for a panel that will discuss the legal and practical impacts of this deepening circuit split that may make its way to the Supreme Court.
Jay Srinivasan is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. The Daily Journal named him to its 2022 “Top Antitrust Lawyers” list for California. He represents a wide range of clients, primarily in the entertainment and tech industries in high-stakes litigation matters, and also provides antitrust advice in the context of mergers/joint collaborations, government investigations, and business practices. Mr. Srinivasan represented MGM in the Starz v. MGM case.
Tyler Ochoa is a professor at the High Tech Law Institute of Santa Clara University School of Law. He is a recognized expert in copyright law and is the author of annual updates to the treatise The Law of Copyright (originally by the late Howard Abrams). He has also published three articles on statutes of limitations. Before joining the faculty at Santa Clara, he served as a professor and co-director of the Center for Intellectual Property Law at Whittier Law School. He was also a clerk for the Honorable Cecil F. Poole of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and an associate with the law firm of Brown & Bain in Palo Alto, California. In the Starz v. MGM case, Professor Ochoa submitted an amicus brief in support of Starz.
The panel will be moderated by Kenneth M. Trujillo-Jamison, a partner at Willenken LLP. He has extensive experience litigating entertainment matters, including defending a major studio against copyright infringement claims involving animated films and a prominent portrait photographer in a right-of-publicity case brought by the rapper Jay-Z. Kenneth wrote a recently published article in the Daily Journal about this panel’s topic.
