Hearst Can’t Shed Copyright Judgment as ‘Discovery Rule’ Stands

Copyright law’s “discovery rule,” which establishes that the three-year statute of limitations begins counting down when the plaintiff first discovers the infringement, was reaffirmed by the Fifth Circuit in a dispute between a photographer and Hearst Newspapers LLC.

A three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled Thursday that two recent Supreme Court decisions didn’t overturn the discovery rule or fundamentally change the court’s legal analysis of the statute of limitations.

Antonio Martinelli’s copyright claims against Hearst were timely because he sued within three-years of discovering that the company had allegedly published his photographs of ...