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Another Round for Petrella v. MGM, Laches, and Raging Bull: Resolving the Circuit Split Over Copyright’s Statute of Limitations
Get PDFThere is a split between the Second Circuit and the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits over the interpretation and application of the Copyright Act’s three-year statute of limitations. The disagreement is about whether it bars a copyright infringement plaintiff from recovering for infringing acts occurring outside the statute’s three-year window. The Second Circuit stated in 2020 in Sohm v. Scholastic that the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly delimited damages to the three years prior to the commencement of an infringement action. However, the Ninth Circuit in Starz Entertainment in 2022 and the Eleventh Circuit Nealy v. Warner Chappell Music in 2023 both held that so long as a plaintiff brings suit within three years of discovering infringing acts, it may seek damages regardless of when those acts occurred.
The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in Nealy v. Warner Chappell Music to resolve the following question:
Whether, under the discovery accrual rule applied by the circuit courts and the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations for civil actions, 17 U.S.C. §507(b), a copyright plaintiff can recover damages for acts that allegedly occurred more than three years before the filing of a lawsuit.
This circuit split presents an ideal opportunity for the nation’s highest court to resolve an important question concerning how the Copyright Act should be interpreted. The heart of this split is disagreement over how courts should read and apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Petrella v. MGM. That decision concerned rights in the award-winning movie Raging Bull, the equitable defense of laches, and how that defense relates to copyright’s statute of limitations.
The Second Circuit stated in Sohm that Petrella limits claims to “a three-year lookback period from the time the suit is filed to determine the extent of the relief available.” This means that “a plaintiff’s recovery is limited to damages incurred during the three years prior to filing suit.” In contrast, the Ninth Circuit stated in Starz Entertainment v. MGM Domestic Television that “[n]either the text of the Copyright Act nor Petrella imposes a three-year damages bar in a discovery rule case.” Similarly, the Eleventh Circuit in Warner Chappell Music was unwilling to read Petrella as creating a three-year lookback period or a damages cap.
This Article’s thesis is that the U.S. Supreme Court, in resolving this circuit split, should agree with the Second Circuit’s holding in Sohm v. Scholastic that limits the plaintiff’s damages to the three-year lookback period from the time the suit was filed. The Article discusses the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations, actions that trigger the running of this statute of limitations, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s Petrella decision. It then analyzes the Second Circuit’s approach to the underlying issue followed by an analysis of the Ninth and Eleventh Circuit approaches. The Article’s last section concentrates on why the split should be resolved to align with the Sohm decision. This outcome is based on the author’s reading of Petrella, the legislative history of the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations, and statements made by the U.S. Supreme Court and other courts in opinions dealing with similar issues involving damages and statutes of limitations for several different causes of action
Carlson\u27s book cited by the Georgia Supreme Court
No full textCallaway Chair of Law Emeritus Ronald L. Carlson\u27s book Carlson on Evidence (with M. Carlson) was recently cited by the Georgia Supreme Court in Gallegos-Munoz v. State regarding the right to cross examine a witness about prior falsehoods authored by the witness. This citation brings the total to 77 times that this text has been used by Georgia appellate courts to resolve evidentiary issues
Hellerstein’s book cited by the Oregon Tax Court
No full textDistinguished Research Professor & Shackelford Distinguished Professor in Taxation Law Emeritus Walter Hellerstein\u27s treatise State Taxation was quoted by the Oregon Tax Court in Microsoft Corp. v. Department of Revenue (Aug. 29, 2024)
Amann presents at Nuremberg Forum
No full textRegents\u27 Professor of International Law & Woodruff Chair in International Law Diane Marie Amann presented “Child-Taking” as part of the Ways Forward: Protecting Future Generations panel at the Nuremberg Forum 2024 titled “For Every Child: Protecting Children’s Rights in Armed Conflict” at the International Nuremberg Principles Academy in Germany during October
Rodrigues named dean of the UGA School of Law
No full textRodrigues named dean of the UGA School of LawShe currently serves as associate dean for faculty development
Usha R. Rodrigues, associate dean for faculty development, M.E. Kilpatrick Chair of Corporate Finance and Securities Law and University Professor, has been named the next dean of the University of Georgia School of Law. She will begin her new role on Jan. 1, 2025, when Peter B. “Bo” Rutledge steps down as dean after 10 years of service.
“During her tenure at the University of Georgia, I have come to know Usha Rodrigues as a distinguished teacher, a respected scholar and an extraordinary university citizen,” said President Jere W. Morehead. “She has a deep commitment to the School of Law and the University of Georgia, and she has a clear vision for advancing the school’s outstanding reputation as one of the best public law schools in the nation.”
Rodrigues’ appointment follows a nationwide search. A 15-member search advisory committee chaired by Ben Ayers, dean of the Terry College of Business, helped identify finalists for the position.
“It is a true honor to have been chosen to serve as the next dean of the University of Georgia School of Law,” said Rodrigues. “Working with our terrific faculty, students, staff and alumni, I hope to build on our strengths as we continue to redefine what it means to be a great national public law school. I am so grateful to be a part of this community.”
A member of the UGA faculty since 2005, Rodrigues also served as UGA’s interim vice provost for academic affairs from 2022 to 2023. Her teaching and research focus on corporate law, business ethics and United States securities regulation, and she is often cited as an expert on special purpose acquisition companies.
As associate dean for faculty development, Rodrigues leads the School of Law’s promotion and tenure unit and supports faculty scholarship. She first held this position from 2015 to 2018 and was reappointed to the post earlier in 2024. Her accomplishments included leading a committee to revise the school’s promotion and tenure standards for the first time in 12 years. She also spearheaded an effort to encourage faculty to seek external funding. Over the course of three years, the law school’s grant submissions substantially increased, and the school continues to build on the foundation she laid roughly 10 years ago.
Rodrigues’ many honors include being named a University Professor in 2019 in recognition of her significant impact on UGA. In 2022, the law school’s graduating class chose her for the C. Ronald Ellington Award for Excellence in Teaching, its highest teaching honor. Graduates also selected her to serve as honorary class marshal in 2013, 2022 and 2024. In 2016, she was elected to the American Law Institute, the preeminent learned society in the field.
In addition to her academic work, Rodrigues remains active in the legal profession, serving as an expert in both litigation and transactional matters. She has provided expert testimony before the House Financial Services Committee, and she has presented before the Securities and Exchange Commission three times. She has been quoted in The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Bloomberg and other media outlets.
Prior to joining UGA, Rodrigues was a corporate associate with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Reston, Va., where she specialized in corporate law and technology transactions. She also served as a judicial law clerk to Judge Thomas L. Ambro of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
“I was fortunate to work closely with Usha Rodrigues during her time as vice provost for academic affairs, and I have seen firsthand her dedication to our students, staff and faculty,” said S. Jack Hu, the university’s senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. “The UGA School of Law is widely recognized for excellence, and I know that Usha will help the school chart a path toward even greater heights in the years to come.”
Rodrigues earned her bachelor\u27s degree summa cum laude from Georgetown University, her master\u27s degree in comparative literature summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia, where she served as editor-in-chief of the Virginia Law Review and was inducted into the Order of the Coif.
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Writer: Mike Wooten, [email protected]: UGA Media Relations, [email protected]
Note to editors: The following photos are available onlinehttps://news.uga.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/RodriguesHead_0.jpg
Cutline: Usha Rodrigues (Submitted photo)
This release is available online athttps://news.uga.edu/rodrigues-named-dean-of-the-uga-school-of-law
Evans publishes article in AALL Spectrum
No full textMetadata Services & Special Collections Librarian Rachel Evans published Information Overload: Communication Styles and Emotional Intelligence – How AI Can Assist Your Asynchronous Messages in 29 AALL Spectrum 22 (2024) (with A. Abdullah, H. Bakken, V. Horton and J. Tubinis)
The Unregulated Digital Playground: Why Kids Need Right of Publicity Protections from Their Parents
Get PDFAs social media continues to become more prevalent in society, profitability on social media platforms continues to increase. Parents have discovered ways to profit online by using their children in content to gather views, therefore taking advantage of their children\u27s right of publicity. While some parents use this profit to raise their children, there is no guarantee that children benefit from their parent\u27s use of their name, image, or likeness. Since social media is still a relatively new space, there are not many protections for the interests of children on social media compared to other areas such as child acting. This Note discusses the importance of protecting a child\u27s right of publicity and proposes legislation for Georgia after discussing other states and one nation that have attempted to do so. More specifically, this Note argues that a portion of a parent\u27s earnings online from content involving their child should be placed in a trust for the child upon the age of majority if the content meets a specified threshold
International Prescriptive Jurisdiction and American Conflict of Laws
Get PDFToday’s conflicts law embraces two approaches: an early 20th century approach that chooses between states based on their territory and a mid- century approach that chooses between individual legal rules based on posited governmental interests. Although both approaches have merit, neither is fully conscious of lawmakers’ comprehensive plans for economic and social development and the related matters of institutional competence. As a result, both approaches may lead to unsatisfactory choices of law to govern regulated contracts and relationships.
To produce more satisfying choices of law for regulated contracts and relationships, this Article proposes a third approach to conflicts law. The approach draws on the public international law of prescriptive jurisdiction and on the management of complex organizations. The Article refers to its proposed third approach as the prescriptive framework.
The international law of prescriptive jurisdiction allocates law-making power among nations, and, by doing so, establishes spheres of decision- making for economic and social development. The spheres frequently overlap, with multiple nations having discretion to make decisions about development, to select suitable institutions, and to enact law accordingly. Nations deal with the overlaps and conflicts between their plans of development through deference to each other (frequently expressed as prescriptive comity) and through negotiated settlements embodied in international agreements.
This Article brings the perspective of international prescriptive jurisdiction into American conflicts law. Within the prescriptive framework proposed by this Article, American conflict-of-law rules also allocate law- making power among sovereigns, albeit among the sub-national sovereigns of a federal state. The framework recognizes that American states have their own spheres of decision-making for economic and social development, along with discretion to make decisions about development, to select suitable institutions, and to enact law accordingly. Those subnational spheres also overlap, and the prescriptive framework gives structure to the practice of deference to another lawmaker’s discretion.
The Article also draws on the institutional analysis of decision-making within complex organizations. An institutional analysis helps us understand states’ comparative competence and legitimacy in lawmaking. An institutional analysis allows us to identify the best decision-makers for economic and social development through the benefits of delegation, standards, and limitations to reduce the abuse of decision-making discretion, and the value of social norms to address problems in collective action. Hence, an institutional analysis gives structure to prescriptive comity among the American states. We are then able to reframe the American law of conflict of laws as structured prescriptive comity in the management of state economies
Untouchable Sovereign Debts: Towards a New Model of Transitional Justice and Global Finance
Get PDFWho bears the cost of peace in societies transitioning from oppressive regimes? Who is responsible for paying back the debts incurred by dictators? These questions are crucial in transitional justice situations, yet the discipline discusses debts and transitional justice separately. While sovereign debts are viewed within markets and global economic frameworks, transitional justice is considered within citizens and human rights frameworks. This approach is flawed as it marginalizes human dignity and social justice considerations.
To rectify this schism, this Article brings these two legal spheres together in an epistemic dialogue using sovereign debt as the point of intersection. In transitional justice situations, sovereign debts should be the primary sites of just reckoning and accountability. Separating transitional justice and sovereign debts abandons the principal reason for transitional justice, which is to serve citizens. By reckoning with sovereign debts in transitional justice situations, we can transform the paradigm and inspire a decolonial (re)imagination of International Economic Law. This will help resolve the enduring puzzle of sovereign debts shielded with sanctified market veils such as pacta sunt servanda, party autonomy, and terse treaty interpretation.
Using Africa as the standpoint, this Article suggests that a unified paradigm of transitional justice and sovereign debts will enhance socioeconomic justice, facilitate transparency, deepen democracy, and stimulate human flourishing in transitional societies
Panel 2: How Clean Water and Climate Change Impact Environmental Justice
Get PDFChintan Amin – In-House Counsel, CHR Americas
Aradhana Chandra – Associate, Southern Environmental Law Center
Felix Santiago-Collazo – Assistant Professor, University of Georgia College of Engineerin