The copyright statute of limitations gives a copyright owner three years to file a civil infringement lawsuit and gives federal prosecutors five years to bring criminal charges, both under 17 U.S.C. 507.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 507 – Limitations on Actions The deadlines themselves are short and easy to state. What has taken decades of litigation to sort out is when the clock actually starts, and two recent Supreme Court decisions changed the answer in ways that matter for anyone thinking about suing or defending an infringement claim.
The Three-Year Civil Deadline
A civil copyright infringement lawsuit must be filed within three years after the claim accrues.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 507 – Limitations on Actions The statute is one sentence. The word doing the heavy lifting is “accrued,” and courts have split on what it means.
When the Clock Starts: Discovery Rule vs. Injury Rule
Federal courts follow one of two rules. Under the injury rule, the three years starts running the moment infringement happens, whether or not the copyright owner has any idea about it. Under the discovery rule, the clock does not start until the owner knew or reasonably should have known about the infringement. When unauthorized use is quiet, buried in a licensing chain, or hidden inside a large online operation, the gap between the two rules can be years.
Most federal circuits apply the discovery rule. The Supreme Court has not formally endorsed it. In Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. (2014), the Court mentioned the discovery rule but declined to decide whether it applies to copyright claims.2Justia. Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663 (2014) Ten years later in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy (2024), the Court again assumed the discovery rule was valid without deciding the question.3Justia. Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, 601 U.S. ___ (2024) If your case lands in a circuit that follows the injury rule, you can be time-barred before you even learn someone copied your work. Check the rule in the circuit where you would file before you assume you still have time.
Separate Accrual and How Far Back Damages Reach
Copyright law treats each act of infringement as its own claim with its own three-year window. The Supreme Court confirmed this separate-accrual rule in Petrella: every new infringing act starts a fresh limitations period.2Justia. Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663 (2014) A copyright owner who discovers ongoing infringement can sue over recent acts even if earlier ones are gone.
For years, courts assumed that even when the claim itself was timely under the discovery rule, damages were capped at the three years immediately before the lawsuit. Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy ended that assumption. The Court held that the Copyright Act “entitles a copyright owner to obtain monetary relief for any timely infringement claim, no matter when the infringement occurred,” and that Section 507(b) “establishes no separate three-year limit on recovering damages.”3Justia. Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, 601 U.S. ___ (2024) If you can show you did not discover the infringement until recently, and your suit is timely under the discovery rule, damages can reach back well beyond three years. That is a significant expansion of potential liability for defendants and a strong reason for copyright owners to investigate old, quietly running infringements.
Registration Is a Precondition to Suing
Filing within the three-year window is not enough on its own. Under 17 U.S.C. 411(a), you generally cannot bring a civil copyright infringement lawsuit until the U.S. Copyright Office has acted on your registration application, either approving or refusing it.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 411 – Registration and Civil Infringement Actions In Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC (2019), the Supreme Court rejected the argument that filing the application was enough. Registration happens when the Copyright Office acts, not when you send in your paperwork.5Justia. Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 586 U.S. ___ (2019)
That creates a real timing problem. Average processing at the Copyright Office runs roughly 2.5 months across all claims, with online applications without complications averaging about 1.9 months and paper applications sometimes stretching past four months. Correspondence with the Office extends those timelines further.6U.S. Copyright Office. Registration Processing Times If your three-year deadline is close, the processing lag can burn your window. The Copyright Office offers special handling for an $800 fee to expedite review when you need a registration in order to sue.7U.S. Copyright Office. Fees
Registration also affects what you can recover. Register before infringement or within three months of first publication and you become eligible for statutory damages up to $150,000 per work for willful infringement, plus attorney’s fees. Register later and you are limited to actual damages and the infringer’s profits.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 504 – Remedies for Infringement: Damages and Profits
When the Clock Pauses
A few doctrines can stop or extend the running of the limitations period.
Equitable Tolling
Courts may pause the civil clock when a copyright owner, despite reasonable diligence, could not have discovered the infringement. The typical scenario is fraudulent concealment: falsified records, shell companies, or deceptive licensing arrangements designed to hide unauthorized use. Tolling is not automatic. The owner has to show both that the infringement was genuinely hidden and that they took reasonable steps to protect their rights.
Fugitives From Justice
For criminal cases, 18 U.S.C. 3290 provides that no statute of limitations applies to a person fleeing from justice.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3290 – Fugitives From Justice A defendant who leaves the country to avoid prosecution cannot later claim the five-year window ran out while they were gone.
Active Military Service
Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, time spent on active military duty does not count toward any statute of limitations, whether the servicemember is the plaintiff or the defendant. The tolling is automatic during active service, with no requirement to show that military duty actually interfered with the litigation.
Laches Cannot Shorten the Window
Defendants sometimes argue that even if the lawsuit was filed inside three years, the copyright owner sat on the claim so long that delay itself should bar it. That defense is called laches, and the Supreme Court rejected it in Petrella. Laches cannot be used to bar a copyright infringement claim brought within Section 507(b)’s three-year period.2Justia. Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663 (2014) The Court’s reasoning: the three-year lookback already accounts for delay by limiting what can be recovered. A copyright owner has no duty to challenge every possible infringement the moment it appears; waiting to see whether unauthorized use actually harms the value of the work is reasonable. The Court left open a narrow possibility that a court could adjust remedies in extreme delay cases where a defendant relied on the owner’s inaction in good faith, but the claim itself survives.
The Five-Year Criminal Deadline
Criminal copyright prosecutions must begin within five years after the cause of action arose.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 507 – Limitations on Actions The government brings these cases, not the copyright owner, and they target willful infringement committed for commercial advantage or private financial gain.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 506 – Criminal Offenses
Penalties under 18 U.S.C. 2319 are tiered. Willful infringement for profit involving 10 or more copies worth over $2,500 in retail value within 180 days carries up to five years for a first offense and up to ten years for a repeat offense. Large-scale reproduction or distribution at that same volume and value threshold carries up to three years for a first offense and up to six years for a repeat. Distribution of pre-release works for commercial gain carries up to five years for a first offense and up to ten for a repeat. All other criminal infringement carries up to one year.11Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 2319 – Criminal Infringement of a Copyright
In cases involving ongoing distribution networks or streaming operations, courts may treat each new infringing act as restarting the five-year clock, which gives prosecutors room to build complex cases against piracy operations that run for years.
What Happens If You Miss the Deadline
In civil cases, a time-barred claim is dismissed. The defendant raises the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense, and once the court agrees the deadline passed, the case is over. You cannot refile, and you lose access to damages and injunctive relief for the barred conduct. The separate-accrual rule may still allow claims for newer infringements, but anything outside the three-year window measured from accrual is gone.
In criminal cases, missing the five-year deadline means the government cannot prosecute, regardless of how egregious the conduct. Prosecutors sometimes pursue related charges under other federal statutes, such as wire fraud, when the copyright-specific deadline has expired, but those theories require facts that fit the elements of a different crime and are not available in every case.
The Copyright Claims Board as an Alternative Forum
Not every dispute justifies federal court. The Copyright Claims Board, a tribunal inside the Copyright Office, handles smaller copyright disputes through a streamlined process, and CCB claims carry the same three-year statute of limitations as federal court claims.12Copyright Claims Board. Frequently Asked Questions The tradeoff is a damages cap of $30,000 per proceeding, with statutory damages limited to $15,000 per work for timely registered copyrights or $7,500 per work for others.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 1504 – Permissible Claims, Counterclaims, and Defenses Either party can opt out, which sends the matter back to federal court. The CCB does not extend your deadline. If three years have passed, it is closed to you for the same reason federal court is.