Copyright Damages Case Turns on High Court’s Taste for Discovery

The fate of copyright plaintiffs’ ability to obtain damages for late-discovered claims will turn on the US Supreme Court’s taste for what one justice once dubbed “bad wine of a recent vintage.”

The phrase emerged repeatedly during the Feb. 21 oral argument over Warner Chappell Music Inc.'s bid to reverse a ruling that opened the door to a decade of damages for music producer Sherman Nealy. It was coined by Justice Antonin Scalia in 2001 to describe what’s called a “discovery rule"—pausing a statute of limitations when a violation can’t reasonably be discovered in time.

The Supreme Court, upon taking ...