MGM ‘Discovery Rule’ Attack Fails, Boosting Starz Copyright Case

MGM Domestic Television LLC failed to convince the Ninth Circuit to abandon a rule tying the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations to when infringement was discovered.

Starz Entertainment LLC’s lawsuit claims MGM violated an exclusivity agreement by also licensing hundreds of movies and television shows to Amazon for streaming. MGM argued claims on 126 of the 340 works at issue came after the statute of limitations had run. But the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected MGM’s argument that the “discovery rule"—a general principle that statutes of limitations date to the reasonable discovery of a violation rather ...