Court Opinion

ID: 9386905
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-14 00:00:27.749158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:09.362857
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690         Page: 1    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

           United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit                               United States Court of Appeals
                                                                             Fifth Circuit

                                                                           FILED
                                                                       April 13, 2023
                                  No. 22-20333                        Lyle W. Cayce
                                                                           Clerk

   Antonio Martinelli,

                                                            Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                      versus

   Hearst Newspapers, L.L.C.; Hearst Magazine Media,
   Incorporated,

                                                       Defendants—Appellants.

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Texas
                           USDC No. 4:21-CV-3412

   Before Barksdale, Southwick, and Higginson, Circuit Judges.
   Stephen A. Higginson, Circuit Judge:
          A civil action for copyright infringement under the Copyright Act of
   1976 must be “commenced within three years after the claim accrued.” 17
   U.S.C. § 507(b). In Graper v. Mid-Continent Casualty Co., our court decided
   that this limitations period starts running “once the plaintiff knows or has
   reason to know of the injury upon which the claim is based,” which is also
   known as the discovery rule. 756 F.3d 388, 393 (5th Cir. 2014) (cleaned up).
   Today, appellants Hearst Newspapers, L.L.C. and Hearst Magazine Media,
   Incorporated (collective, “Hearst”) ask us to replace the discovery rule with
Case: 22-20333        Document: 00516711690             Page: 2      Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                        No. 22-20333

   a holding that the clock starts when an act of copyright infringement occurs.
   Hearst argues that Graper is no longer binding in light of the Supreme Court’s
   decisions in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 572 U.S. 663 (2014), and
   Rotkiske v. Klemm, 140 S. Ct. 355 (2019). Since neither of those cases
   unequivocally overruled Graper, we AFFIRM.
                                              I.
           In 2015, Sotheby’s International Realty commissioned Antonio
   Martinelli to photograph Lugalla, an Irish estate owned by the Guinness
   family. 1 Martinelli took seven photographs of the property, and Lugalla was
   subsequently listed for sale.
           On March 7, 2017, Hearst Newspapers used Martinelli’s photographs
   in a web-only article, “The ‘Guinness Castle’ in Ireland Is on the Market,”
   which Hearst Newspapers published on websites associated with the
   Houston Chronicle, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Times Union, the
   Greenwich Time, and The Middletown Press.                    Six days later, Hearst
   Newspapers again used the photographs in a web-only article available on
   those websites.         The next day, a different entity called Hearst
   Communications used four of the photographs in a web-only article
   published on a website associated with Elle Décor magazine.
           Martinelli first discovered the Houston Chronicle article on
   November 17, 2018. Between September 2019 and May 2020, Martinelli
   discovered the article on the websites of the San Francisco Chronicle, the
   Times Union, the Greenwich Time, and The Middletown Press.                           On
   February 19, 2020, Martinelli discovered the article on the Elle Décor

           1
            We adopt the parties’ spelling of the estate’s name, even though the more widely
   accepted spelling appears to be “Luggala.”

                                              2
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690           Page: 3   Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                    No. 22-20333

   website. Hearst has stipulated that Martinelli could not have discovered
   those uses of his photographs with reasonable diligence at earlier times.
          On October 18, 2021, Martinelli sued Hearst Newspapers for
   copyright infringement, alleging that the Houston Chronicle’s website had
   used Martinelli’s photographs without permission. On February 11, 2022,
   Martinelli amended his complaint to bring a copyright infringement claim
   against Hearst Magazine Media, Inc.—the current owner of the Elle Décor
   copyrights—and to allege that his photographs were also used on websites
   associated with the San Francisco Chronicle, the Times Union, the
   Greenwich Time, and The Middletown Press. Martinelli brought these
   claims within three years of discovering the infringements but more than
   three years after the infringements occurred.
          The parties cross-moved for summary judgment, stipulating that
   Hearst committed copyright infringement and that Martinelli would be
   entitled to $10,000 if he prevails. Hearst argued that intervening Supreme
   Court decisions “undermined” this circuit’s discovery rule and that
   Martinelli’s claims were untimely because they accrued when Hearst
   infringed Martinelli’s copyrights. The district court rejected this argument,
   followed Graper, granted Martinelli’s motion for summary judgment, and
   denied Hearst’s motion.
          Hearst timely appealed.
                                        II.
          On appeal, Hearst argues that Martinelli’s claims are time-barred
   because a claim accrues under § 507(b) when the infringement occurs.
   Hearst recognizes that under this circuit’s precedents, the § 507(b)
   limitations period starts when the plaintiff “knows or has reason to know of
   the injury upon which the claim is based.” Graper, 756 F.3d at 393 (cleaned
   up). Yet Hearst contends that the Supreme Court’s decisions in Petrella and

                                         3
Case: 22-20333      Document: 00516711690           Page: 4    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                     No. 22-20333

   Rotkiske “undermined the reasoning of [this circuit’s] precedents” such that
   the rule of orderliness does not require this court to follow the discovery rule.
   Petrella and Rotkiske had no such effect. Accordingly, as the district court
   concluded, Martinelli’s claims were timely under Graper.
                                          A.
          Under this circuit’s rule of orderliness, “one panel . . . may not
   overturn another panel’s decision, absent an intervening change in the law,
   such as by a statutory amendment, or the Supreme Court, or our en banc
   court.” Jacobs v. Nat’l Drug Intel. Ctr., 548 F.3d 375, 378 (5th Cir. 2008); see
   United States v. Alcantar, 733 F.3d 143, 145-46 (5th Cir. 2013). “[F]or a
   Supreme Court decision to change our [c]ircuit’s law, it must . . .
   unequivocally overrule prior precedent.” Tech. Automation Servs. Corp. v.
   Liberty Surplus Ins. Corp., 673 F.3d 399, 405 (5th Cir. 2012) (cleaned up);
   Brotherhood of Locomotive Eng’rs & Trainmen v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 31 F.4th
   337, 344 (5th Cir. 2022) (similar). Neither “a mere ‘hint’ of how the
   [Supreme] Court might rule in the future,” Alcantar, 733 F.3d at 146, nor a
   decision that is “merely illuminating with respect to the case before [us]”
   will permit a subsequent panel to depart from circuit precedent, Tech.
   Automation, 673 F.3d at 405.
          Following these principles, where an intervening Supreme Court
   decision “fundamentally changes the focus of the relevant analysis,” our
   precedents relying on that analysis are “implicitly overruled.”            In re
   Bonvillian Marine Serv., Inc., 19 F.4th 787, 792 (5th Cir. 2021) (cleaned up).
   But this is only true when the changed analysis clearly applies to the case
   before us, such that we are “unequivocally directed by controlling Supreme
   Court precedent” to “overrule the decision of [the] prior panel,” United
   States v. Zuniga-Salinas, 945 F.2d 1302, 1306 (5th Cir. 1991); see Stokes v. Sw.
   Airlines, 887 F.3d 199, 204 (5th Cir. 2018) (“Such a change occurs, for

                                          4
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690           Page: 5   Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                    No. 22-20333

   example, when the Supreme Court disavows the mode of analysis on which
   our precedent relied.”); Gonzalez v. Thaler, 623 F.3d 222, 226 (5th Cir. 2010)
   (examining whether a Supreme Court decision “establishes a rule of law
   inconsistent with our own” (cleaned up)).
                                        B.
          The parties identify six cases, three of which are published and
   binding, in which this circuit arguably held that a copyright infringement
   claim accrues “once the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury
   upon which the claim is based.” Graper, 756 F.3d at 393 (cleaned up); see
   Pritchett v. Pound, 473 F.3d 217, 220 (5th Cir. 2006); Prather v. Neva
   Paperbacks, Inc., 446 F.2d 338, 341 (5th Cir. 1971); Aspen Tech., Inc. v. M3
   Tech., Inc., 569 F. App’x 259, 264 (5th Cir. 2014) (per curiam) (unpublished);
   Jordan v. Sony BMG Music Ent. Inc., 354 F. App’x 942, 945 (5th Cir. 2009)
   (per curiam) (unpublished); Groden v. Allen, 279 F. App’x 290, 294 (5th Cir.
   2008) (per curiam) (unpublished). Out of our three published authorities,
   only Graper squarely held the discovery rule applies to a copyright
   infringement claim. See 756 F.3d at 393. None of these cases explains why
   the discovery rule applies to a copyright infringement claim.
          Graper resolved an insurance coverage dispute. The insureds were
   sued for copyright infringement, and after they tendered the claim to the
   insurer, the insurer agreed to defend them subject to a reservation of rights.
   Id. at 390. One of the bases for exclusion of coverage was “that the injury
   may not have occurred during policy coverage dates.” Id. at 391. The
   insureds then retained their own counsel to defend the copyright
   infringement suit because “they believed there was a disqualifying conflict of
   interest between them and any counsel [the insurer] chose,” and they filed a
   separate declaratory action to determine their rights under the relevant
   policies. Id.

                                         5
Case: 22-20333      Document: 00516711690           Page: 6     Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                     No. 22-20333

          On appeal, the only issue was “whether [the insurer] was obligated to
   pay for the [i]nsureds’ selected counsel to defend the [copyright
   infringement] claims.” Id. The court explained that an obligation to pay for
   an insured’s selected counsel arises if the insurer’s chosen counsel has a
   disqualifying conflict of interest. Id. at 392. Such a conflict of interest exists
   if “the facts to be adjudicated in the underlying lawsuit are the same facts
   upon which coverage depends.” Id. (cleaned up). The insureds argued that
   because they defended the “copyright claims on grounds that the claims
   ‘accrued’ outside the applicable time provided by the statute of limitations”
   and because the insurer “reserved the right to deny coverage of the . . . claims
   on grounds that the alleged acts of infringement . . . ‘occurred’ outside the
   time the policy was in effect,” “many of the same facts [would] determine
   both the [i]nsureds’ liability and the [i]nsureds’ coverage.” Id. at 393.
          We disagreed, holding that no disqualifying conflict of interest existed
   because the limitations period for a copyright-infringement claim runs from
   the date that the infringement is discovered, not the date that the
   infringement occurs. Id. at 393-94. “In litigating the [i]nsureds’ statute of
   limitation defense,” counsel “would only need to have adjudicated the fact
   of when the claim accrued, not the fact of when the acts of infringement
   occurred,” id. at 393 (emphasis in original), and we explained that “[a] claim
   accrues once the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury upon
   which the claim is based,” id. (quotation marks and alterations omitted)
   (quoting Jordan, 354 F. App’x at 945). Although adjudication of the date
   when the infringement was discovered “would signal, in subsequent
   litigation, that the infringing conduct occurred before that date of
   discovery,” “such a determination . . . would lack the specificity necessary
   to decide whether the claim was covered under the [i]nsureds’ policy.” Id.
   (emphasis omitted).

                                           6
Case: 22-20333         Document: 00516711690                Page: 7       Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                           No. 22-20333

           Although it was necessary to the decision in Graper that the discovery
   rule controlled the limitations period for a copyright infringement claim,
   Graper did not explain why the discovery rule applied. Instead, as noted
   above, the discovery rule holding in Graper quoted from our unpublished
   decision in Jordan v. Sony BMG Music Entertainment Inc. See 354 F. App’x
   at 945. 2 At most, Graper included a footnote recognizing that “[o]ther
   circuits agree that this is the proper inquiry” without endorsing the reasoning
   of those out-of-circuit decisions. Graper, 756 F.3d at 393 n.5 (citing Cooper v.
   NCS Pearson, Inc., 733 F.3d 1013 (10th Cir. 2013); and William A. Graham
   Co. v. Haughey, 568 F.3d 425, 433 (3d Cir. 2009)).
           Two other recent unpublished cases from this court apply the
   discovery rule to copyright infringement claims without giving a rationale.
   See Aspen, 569 F. App’x at 264 (stating that “the discovery rule . . . appl[ies]
   to . . . infringement claims”); Groden, 279 F. App’x at 294 (stating that “the
   relevant inquiry” under § 507(b) “is when the claim accrued, not when the
   infringement occurred”). Both cases rely on our earlier published decision
   in Prather v. Neva Paperbacks, Inc. See Aspen, 569 F. App’x at 264 n.8.;
   Groden, 279 F. App’x at 294.
           However, Prather concerned whether the “fraudulent concealment”
   of a copyright infringement cause of action “by the defendant will [equitably]

           2
              In turn, Jordan does not explain why the discovery rule applies to copyright
   infringement claims and instead quotes from our published decision in Pritchett v. Pound.
   354 F. App’x at 945 (quoting Pritchett, 473 F.3d at 220). But Pritchett involved a copyright
   ownership claim, did not address whether the discovery rule applied to a copyright
   infringement claim, and also did not explain why the discovery rule applied to the claims at
   issue. See Pritchett, 473 F.3d at 220. Instead, it cited to a Second Circuit case that similarly
   does not explain why the discovery rule applies to a copyright ownership claim. See id.
   (citing Est. of Burne Hogarth v. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., 342 F.3d 149, 165 (2d Cir. 2003)).

                                                  7
Case: 22-20333        Document: 00516711690              Page: 8       Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                          No. 22-20333

   toll the statute of limitations” under the Copyright Act as amended in 1957. 3
   446 F.2d at 341. The district court had found “that the last publication of
   the alleged infringing work occurred in June, 1964, but [the] suit was not filed
   until August, 1969,” and “no circumstances . . . excuse[d] plaintiff’s lack of
   knowledge of the infringement.” Id. at 339. On appeal, we considered only
   whether the plaintiff was entitled to equitable tolling. Id. at 339-41.
           At the outset, we refused to apply a Florida-law equitable doctrine
   called the “Blameless Ignorance rule” because enforcing “a peculiarly local
   doctrine” would “frustrate the Congressional goal of homogeneity” in
   enacting a uniform three-year limitations period. Id. at 339-40. Then, we
   considered whether the federal-law fraudulent concealment doctrine tolled
   the limitations period. Id. at 340-41. The plaintiff argued that the defendants
   had concealed the existence of a book that infringed his copyrights “and
   prevented him from obtaining a copy of that book.” Id. at 340. But the court
   concluded that the defendants had not fraudulently concealed the book
   because the plaintiff knew about the book all along. Id. at 341. That the
   “plaintiff was unable to procure a copy of the [allegedly infringing book was]
   insufficient to show the successful concealment necessary to toll the statute
   of limitations.” Id. In more general terms, we said that “[o]nce [a] plaintiff
   is on inquiry that it has a potential claim, the statute can start to run,” even

           3
             As the Supreme Court explained in Petrella, “[u]ntil 1957, federal copyright law
   did not include a statute of limitations for civil suits,” and so federal courts “used
   analogous state statutes of limitations.” 572 U.S. at 669. In 1957, Congress added a three-
   year limitations period for civil claims, which read, “[n]o civil action shall be maintained
   under [the Act] unless the same is commenced within three years after the claim accrued.”
   See Act of Sept. 7, 1957, Pub. L. 85–313, 71 Stat. 633, 17 U.S.C. § 115(b) (1958 ed.).
   Essentially the same language was recodified in the Copyright Act of 1976: “No civil action
   shall be maintained under [the Act] unless it is commenced within three years after the
   claim accrued.” 17 U.S.C. § 507(b); see Petrella, 572 U.S. at 670 n.3 (“The Copyright Act
   was pervasively revised in 1976, but the three-year look-back statute of limitations has
   remained materially unchanged.”).

                                                8
Case: 22-20333      Document: 00516711690           Page: 9    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                     No. 22-20333

   if the plaintiff has not yet “obtain[ed] a thorough understanding of all the
   facts.” Id. (citation omitted). Prather borrowed this principle from a decision
   of the Court of Claims, which explained that “[t]his standard is in line with
   the modern philosophy of pleading which has reduced the requirements of
   the petition and left for discovery and other pretrial procedures the
   opportunity to flesh out claims and to define more narrowly the disputed
   facts and issues.” Id. (quoting Japanese War Notes Claimants Ass’n of
   Philippines, Inc. v. United States, 373 F.2d 356, 359 (Ct. Cl. 1967)). As Prather
   put it, “[t]he bells do not toll the limitations statute while one ferrets the
   facts.” Id.
          Thus, in Prather, we appear to have assumed that the statute of
   limitations would bar the plaintiff’s claim unless the fraudulent concealment
   doctrine applied.      And since the plaintiff knew about the alleged
   infringement, he could not assert that the defendants had concealed it. So
   Prather narrowly held that a plaintiff’s inability to obtain evidence of
   infringement does not equitably toll the limitations period under a fraudulent
   concealment theory. The issue of whether the limitations period of the
   Copyright Act as amended in 1957 started running when the defendants
   published the book or when the plaintiff discovered the book was not clearly
   raised or resolved.
          In sum, Graper is the only precedent binding this court to apply the
   discovery rule with respect to the § 507(b) limitations period for copyright
   infringement claims.
                                          C.
          Hearst argues that the panel “need not . . . follow[]” this circuit’s
   discovery rule because cases like Graper “cannot be reconciled” with Petrella
   and Rotkiske. But Petrella and Rotkiske did not “unequivocally overrule”
   Graper, either by holding that the limitations period in § 507(b) starts running

                                          9
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690           Page: 10    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                    No. 22-20333

   when infringement occurs or by “fundamentally chang[ing] the focus of the
   relevant analysis” with respect to the Copyright Act. Bonvillian, 19 F.4th at
   792 (cleaned up). To the contrary, Petrella and Rotkiske leave open the
   possibility that in a later case, the Supreme Court might decide that the
   discovery rule does apply to § 507(b).
                                          1.
          In Petrella, the Court decided under what circumstances a defendant
   can assert the equitable defense of laches—an “unreasonable, prejudicial
   delay in commencing suit”—against a copyright infringement claim that is
   brought within § 507(b)’s limitations period. 572 U.S. at 667. The Court
   held that although laches cannot preclude a timely claim for damages, in
   “extraordinary circumstances,” laches may bar equitable relief. Id. at 667-
   68. But the Court left for another day the question of whether discovery or
   occurrence of an infringing act triggers § 507(b).
          Before reaching the question of whether a laches defense was
   available, the Court explained how the § 507(b) limitations period works. Id.
   at 669-72. The Court noted that “[a] claim ordinarily accrues when a plaintiff
   has a complete and present cause of action,” and then stated that “[a]
   copyright claim thus arises or accrues when an infringing act occurs.” Id. at
   670 (cleaned up). However, in a corresponding footnote, the Court clarified
   that “[a]lthough we have not passed on the question, nine Courts of Appeals
   have adopted, as an alternative to the incident of injury rule, a ‘discovery
   rule,’ which starts the limitations period when the plaintiff discovers, or with
   due diligence should have discovered, the injury that forms the basis for the
   claim.” Id. at 670 n.4 (cleaned up).
          Although the Court appears to have assumed without deciding that
   the limitations period starts to run when the infringement occurs, that
   assumption was not necessary to the Court’s decision. The Court held that

                                          10
Case: 22-20333      Document: 00516711690             Page: 11   Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                       No. 22-20333

   laches may not be invoked as a bar to damages under the Copyright Act
   because § 507(b) “itself takes account of delay.” Id. at 677. Specifically,
   under “the separate-accrual rule,” “the statute of limitations runs separately
   from each violation” of the Copyright Act, meaning that “each infringing act
   starts a new limitations period.” Id. at 671. Because “a successful plaintiff
   can gain retrospective relief only three years back from the time of suit,” the
   plaintiff could not reach the defendant’s “returns on its investments”
   realized earlier than three-years prior to the date of the suit. Id. at 677. None
   of this analysis requires that the limitations period start running with the
   infringing act—only that the plaintiff’s recovery be limited to a three-year
   window “from the time of suit,” and that separate infringing acts trigger
   separate limitations periods. Id.
          In rebutting the counterargument that laches should be treated like
   equitable tolling and read into every federal statute of limitations, the Court
   said that unlike tolling, laches “originally served as a guide when no statute
   of limitations controlled the claim” and “can scarcely be described as a rule
   for interpreting a statutory prescription.” Id. at 681-82. To illustrate the
   point, the Court noted that § 507(b) “makes the starting trigger an infringing
   act committed three years back from the commencement of suit, while
   laches, as conceived by [the court of appeals] and advanced by [the
   respondent], makes the presumptive trigger the defendant’s initial infringing
   act.” Id. at 682 (emphasis omitted). But the Court’s gloss on what condition
   triggers the limitations period was not necessary to the Court’s point that
   § 507(b) contained a limitations period, and so there was no need to use
   laches “as a guide.” Id. at 681. After all, regardless of whether the discovery
   or occurrence of infringement starts the clock, what mattered to the Court
   was that the “limitations period . . . coupled to the separate-accrual rule . . . .
   allows a copyright owner to defer suit until she can estimate whether
   litigation is worth the candle.” Id. at 682-83.

                                            11
Case: 22-20333      Document: 00516711690            Page: 12    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                      No. 22-20333

          The Court later confirmed that Petrella didn’t disturb the discovery
   rule in SCA Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC,
   580 U.S. 328 (2017). There, the Court decided that laches could not be
   asserted as a defense against a timely claim for damages from patent
   infringement under the Patent Act, 35 U.S.C. § 286. SCA Hygiene, 580 U.S.
   at 346. The infringer tried to distinguish Petrella on the basis that unlike
   § 507(b), § 286 was not a “true statute of limitations” because it “runs
   backward from the time of suit.” Id. at 336 (citation omitted). The Court
   rejected this distinction, explaining that Petrella described § 507(b) as “a
   three year look-back limitations period” that “allows plaintiffs to gain
   retrospective relief running only three years back from the date the complaint
   was filed.” Id. at 336-37 (cleaned up and emphasis omitted). Nor was the
   Court persuaded that § 286 of the Patent Act is different from § 507(b)
   because § 286 “turns only on when the infringer is sued, regardless of when
   the patentee learned of the infringement.” Id. at 337 (citation omitted). The
   Court quoted Petrella that “a claim ordinarily accrues when a plaintiff has a
   complete and present cause of action,” and further explained that “[w]hile
   some claims are subject to a ‘discovery rule’ . . . that is not a universal feature
   of statutes of limitations.” Id. (cleaned up). The Court further recognized
   that “in Petrella, we specifically noted that ‘we have not passed on the
   question’ whether the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations is governed by
   such a rule.” Id. at 337-38 (citation omitted).
          Hearst acknowledges that Petrella did not decide whether the statute
   of limitations in § 507(b) starts running when the infringing act occurs or is
   discovered. So instead of arguing that Petrella unequivocally overruled
   Graper, Hearst contends that “the Court’s articulation of when claims
   generally accrue, and its explanation [of] how statutes of limitations generally
   work, leads to the conclusion that [the discovery rule] does not apply” to

                                           12
Case: 22-20333        Document: 00516711690              Page: 13       Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                          No. 22-20333

   § 507(b). 4 Petrella does not lead to that conclusion. But even if it did, under
   this circuit’s rule of orderliness, we would still be bound to Graper.
           Petrella’s general statements about statutes of limitation and the
   separate-accrual rule leave room for caselaw holding that the discovery rule
   applies to § 507(b). Petrella said that limitations periods “generally begin[]
   to run at the point when the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief,” assumed
   that “[a] copyright claim . . . accrues when an infringing act occurs,” and
   reasoned that “each infringing act starts a new limitations period” under the
   separate-accrual rule. Petrella, 572 U.S. at 670-71 (cleaned up). But the
   Court did “not pass[]” on whether the § 507(b) limitations period is
   triggered by discovery of infringement. Id. at 670 n.4; see SCA Hygiene, 580
   U.S. at 337. Instead, the Court left open the possibility that at the time of
   § 507(b)’s enactment, a copyright infringement claim accrued like claims
   arising from “latent disease and medical malpractice,” TRW Inc. v. Andrews,
   534 U.S. 19, 27 (2001), which are “unknown or unknowable until the injury
   manifests itself,” Rotella v. Wood, 528 U.S. 549, 556 (2000) (citation
   omitted), and for which the Court has “recognized a prevailing discovery
   rule,” TRW Inc., 534 U.S. at 27.
           However, even accepting as true that Petrella “leads to the conclusion
   that” the discovery rule does not apply to § 507(b), the rule of orderliness
   still requires us to follow Graper. As set forth above, Petrella’s statements
   suggesting that a copyright infringement claim accrues when the

           4
             Graper issued on June 24, 2014, about a month after Petrella. See 572 U.S. 663
   (decided May 19, 2014). However, as Hearst points out, just because Graper came out after
   Petrella doesn’t mean that Graper actually decided that the discovery rule survives Petrella.
   See Gahagan v. USCIS, 911 F.3d 298, 302 (5th Cir. 2018). Graper did not mention Petrella
   or address whether Petrella foreclosed the discovery rule, and no party appears to have
   brought Petrella to the court’s attention. The issue of whether Petrella unequivocally
   overruled the discovery rule is accordingly before us as a matter of first impression.

                                                13
Case: 22-20333        Document: 00516711690           Page: 14    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                       No. 22-20333

   infringement occurs are dicta, which do not bind us and are therefore at most
   “merely illuminating” with respect to this case. Tech. Automation, 673 F.3d
   at 405.
             This court’s decision in Energy Intelligence Group, Inc. v. Kayne
   Anderson Capital Advisors, L.P. does not compel a different result. 948 F.3d
   261 (5th Cir. 2020). There, we did not interpret Petrella as unequivocally
   overruling Graper, and we certainly did not bind future courts to such an
   interpretation. Rather, we decided that “mitigation is not an absolute
   defense to statutory damages under the Copyright Act.” Id. at 275. Before
   reaching that holding, we explained that the viability of a mitigation defense
   turned on “whether the Copyright Act contains a statutory purpose”
   contrary to “the common-law principle of mitigation,” and we summarized
   Petrella because “statutory purpose and the nature of the common-law
   defense asserted . . . were central to [that case].” Id. at 270-71. In our recap
   of Petrella, we said in a footnote that “[t]he rule of separate accrual, as
   discussed in Petrella, takes as given that a copyright claim accrues when an
   infringing act occurs (the ‘incident of injury’ rule) and treats each successive
   infringing act as a new, independent wrong with its own limitations period.”
   Id. at 271 n.5. This footnote simply reiterates that Petrella assumed without
   deciding that a copyright infringement claim accrues when the infringement
   occurs. It does not say that Graper is bad law. Indeed, even if we are bound
   to this claim that Petrella assumed that the “incident of injury” rule applies,
   as discussed above, it might still be that the limitations period in § 507(b)
   starts running at the discovery of each infringing act.
             In any event, the Energy Intelligence footnote is dicta to which the rule
   of orderliness does not apply. Netsphere, Inc. v. Baron, 799 F.3d 327, 333 (5th
   Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). Our decision that mitigation is not an absolute
   defense to statutory damages was based on the insight that statutory damages
   under the Copyright Act “are not solely intended to approximate actual

                                            14
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690           Page: 15   Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                    No. 22-20333

   damages,” “serve purposes that include deterrence,” and “are therefore
   distinct from the type of damages that are typically calculated according to
   rules of mitigation.” Energy Intel. Grp., 948 F.3d at 274. Although we
   rejected the defendant’s argument that the “harm . . . for purposes of its
   mitigation defense, was [its] continuing infringing conduct” because
   “Petrella unequivocally approved the rule of separate accrual and held that
   every act of copyright infringement is an independently actionable legal
   wrong,” id., this part of our analysis depended solely on the fact that the
   separate-accrual rule creates a separate limitations period for each infringing
   act—not that the limitations period starts running when each separate
   infringement occurs. The first part of the footnote about the separate-accrual
   rule—“[t]he rule of separate accrual, as discussed in Petrella, takes as given
   that a copyright claim accrues when an infringing act occurs (the ‘incident of
   injury’ rule),” id. at 271 n.5—“could have been deleted without seriously
   impairing the analytical foundations of the holding and being peripheral, may
   not have received the full and careful consideration of the court that uttered
   it,” Netsphere, Inc., 799 F.3d at 333 (citation omitted). We know that this is
   true because if we “turn the questioned proposition around . . . to assert
   whatever alternative proposition the court rejected in its favor”—namely,
   that the separate limitations periods start running when the infringing acts
   are discovered—“the insertion of the rejected proposition. . . would not
   require a change in either the court’s judgment or the reasoning that supports
   it.” Pierre N. Leval, Judging Under the Constitution: Dicta About Dicta, 81
   N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1249, 1257 (2006).
                                         2.
          Next, Hearst argues that Rotkiske “fundamentally changes the focus
   of the relevant analysis” by holding that “the discovery rule does not
   generally apply to statutes of limitations absent clear language in the statute

                                         15
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690           Page: 16    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                    No. 22-20333

   to that effect.” But Hearst misconstrues Rotkiske and overstates the extent
   to which Rotkiske governs this court’s interpretation of the Copyright Act.
          Rotkiske held that the statute of limitations in the Fair Debt Collection
   Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(d), “begins to run on the date on
   which the alleged FDCPA violation occurs, not the date on which the
   violation is discovered.” 140 S. Ct. at 358. To start, the Court considered
   whether § 1692k applied “a general discovery rule as a principle of statutory
   interpretation.” Id. at 360. The Court explained that “we begin by analyzing
   the statutory language,” and “[i]f the words of a statute are unambiguous,
   this first step of the interpretive inquiry is our last.” Id. The limitations
   provision in the FDCPA says that an action may be brought “within one year
   from the date on which the violation occurs.” 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(d). The
   Court held that this “language unambiguously sets the date of the [FDCPA]
   violation as the event that starts the one-year limitations period.” Rotkiske,
   140 S. Ct. at 360.
          Given § 1692k(d)’s unambiguous text, the Court refused “to read in
   a provision stating that [the] limitations period begins to run on the date an
   alleged FDCPA violation is discovered.” Id. The Court called such an
   attempt to add a discovery rule into a statute where Congress did not include
   one a “bad wine of recent vintage.” Id. (quoting TRW Inc., 534 U.S. at 37
   (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment)). Although “at the time Congress
   enacted the FDCPA, many statutes included provisions that . . . would begin
   the running of a limitations upon the discovery of a violation, injury, or some
   other event,” Congress did not say as much in § 1692k. Id. at 361 (emphasis
   omitted). Thus, the Court declined “to second-guess Congress’ decision to
   include a ‘violation occurs’ provision, rather than a discovery provision, in
   § 1692k(d).” Id.

                                         16
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690           Page: 17    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                    No. 22-20333

          The Court also noted that “[i]f there are two plausible constructions
   of a statute of limitations, we generally adopt the construction that starts the
   time limit running when the cause of action accrues because Congress
   legislates against the standard rule that the limitations period commences
   when the plaintiff has a complete and present cause of action.” Id. at 360
   (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted) (quoting Graham Cnty. Soil
   & Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 545 U.S. 409, 418-
   19 (2005)). But because the Court decided that § 1692k was unambiguous, it
   had no occasion in Rotkiske to apply this general rule.
          Therefore, contrary to Hearst’s position, Rotkiske did not introduce a
   clear statement rule that a limitations period runs from the occurrence of the
   injury unless the statute expressly says that the discovery rule applies.
   Rather, Rotkiske identified how to resolve the limitations question in two
   categories of cases. First, in cases where a limitations period is unambiguous
   with respect to what conditions starts the clock running, the statutory
   language controls. Rotkiske, 140 S. Ct. at 360. Second, for cases where
   “there are two plausible constructions,” the court “generally adopt[s] the
   construction that starts the time limit running when the cause of action
   accrues.” Id. (cleaned up).
          But Rotkiske did not describe how to analyze every statute of
   limitations in the U.S. Code. Because the limitations period at issue in
   Rotkiske “unambiguously set[] the date of the violation as the event that starts
   the . . . limitations period,” id., the Court did not need to decide whether or
   under what circumstances an ambiguous limitations period could be
   construed to apply the discovery rule. Indeed, with respect to ambiguous
   statutes, while Rotkiske said that courts “generally adopt the construction that
   starts the time limit running when the cause of action accrues,” id. (emphasis
   added and alteration omitted), it did not survey when courts might
   permissibly adopt an alternative construction.        For example, statutory

                                          17
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690             Page: 18     Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                      No. 22-20333

   language describing the limitations period might be ambiguous, yet the only
   plausible construction might be that the discovery rule applies. Rotkiske did
   not address this scenario.
          While Rotkiske refused to “enlarge[]” the FDCPA by “read[ing] in”
   a   discovery   rule   provision    and     noted    that    “[a]textual   judicial
   supplementation” of a discovery rule was “particularly inappropriate”
   because “Congress has enacted statutes that expressly include” discovery
   rule language, id. at 360-61, the Court said so in the context of an
   unambiguous statute that provided a limitations period “within one year
   from the date on which the violation occurs,” 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(d) (emphasis
   added). The Court did not hold that any ambiguity forecloses application of
   a discovery rule. And the Court did not hold that the only way that Congress
   can signal a discovery rule is by using the word “discover.”
          Accordingly, the issues decided in Rotkiske and Graper are distinct.
   See Gahagan v. USCIS, 911 F.3d 298, 302-03 (5th Cir. 2018) (In determining
   whether “a Supreme Court decision involving one statute implicitly
   overrules our precedent involving another statute,” “[t]he overriding
   consideration is the similarity of the issues decided.”). Rotkiske declined to
   read a discovery rule into an unambiguous statute that said that “the date on
   which the violation occurs” is the date that the limitations period starts.
   Graper interpreted the Copyright Act’s limitations period, which provides
   that a civil action must be “commenced within three years after the claim
   accrued,” 17 U.S.C. § 507(b), as running from the date that infringement is
   discovered. Unlike the FDCPA, the Copyright Act does not explicitly pin
   the limitations period to the date that the “violation occurred.” Compare 17
   U.S.C. § 507(b) with 15 U.S.C. § 1692k(d).
          Further, even assuming, as Hearst argues, that Rotkiske “rejects
   any . . . presumption” that “all federal statutes of limitations, regardless of

                                          18
Case: 22-20333       Document: 00516711690             Page: 19      Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                        No. 22-20333

   context, incorporate a general discovery rule unless Congress has expressly
   legislated otherwise,” Rotkiske did not fundamentally change the focus of the
   analysis in Graper. Graper did not explain why it was adopting the discovery
   rule, let alone announce that it was applying such a presumption. 5 Graper
   could have concluded that at the time of § 507(b)’s adoption, a copyright
   infringement claim accrued in the same manner as other claims that the
   Supreme Court has decided are controlled by the discovery rule. See TRW
   Inc., 534 U.S. at 27-28; Rotella, 528 U.S. at 556. Had Graper reached that
   conclusion, the court might have further concluded that the only plausible
   construction of the phrase “claim accrued” in § 507(b) is that the discovery
   rule applies. Graper and Rotkiske can be reconciled along those lines.
           Finally, Hearst argues that In re Bonvillian Marine Service, Inc. “maps
   perfectly on this case.” But Bonvillian is an awkward fit.
           In Bonvillian, the district court dismissed an untimely action under the
   Limitation of Liability Act of 1851 for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction in
   accordance with In re Eckstein Marine Service L.L.C., 672 F.3d 310, 315-16
   (5th Cir. 2012), which held that the time bar in the Limitation Act was
   jurisdictional. Bonvillian, 19 F.4th at 789-90. In holding that the time bar was
   jurisdictional, Eckstein asserted that “[w]hile many statutory filing deadlines
   are not jurisdictional, we have long recognized that some are” and the
   Limitation Act’s “requirement is one of these.” Eckstein, 672 F.3d at 315.
   To support that proposition, Eckstein cited to, among other cases, our
   decision in In re FEMA Trailer Formaldehyde Products Liability Litigation, 646

           5
             Hearst argues that Graper “relied on two pre-Rotkiske and Petrella cases that
   employed” this presumption. However, as we explained, Graper merely cited those cases
   for the proposition that “[o]ther circuits agree” that the discovery rule applies, not to
   incorporate the reasoning of those out-of-circuit cases. Graper, 756 F.3d at 393 n.5.

                                              19
Case: 22-20333        Document: 00516711690               Page: 20        Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                           No. 22-20333

   F.3d 185, 189 (5th Cir. 2011), which held that the FTCA’s statute of
   limitations was jurisdictional. Eckstein, 672 F.3d at 315 n.12.
           On appeal, we concluded that the rule of orderliness did not bind us
   to Eckstein. After we had decided Eckstein, in United States v. Kwai Fun
   Wong, the Supreme Court held that procedural rules like time bars are
   jurisdictional “only if Congress has clearly stated as much.” 575 U.S. 402,
   409 (2015). And Wong had “directly abrogated” FEMA Trailer, which was
   “a logical linchpin” of Eckstein. Bonvillian, 19 F.4th at 791. So we held that
   Wong “fundamentally change[d] the focus of the relevant analysis,” id. at 792
   (internal quotation marks omitted), because “the Eckstein panel largely
   assumed—by citation to a prior panel’s unsupported assumption . . . and by
   analogy to this court’s since-abrogated interpretation of the FTCA’s statute
   of limitations—that [the] action’s untimeliness deprives a district court of
   jurisdiction,” while Wong said “that the essential hallmark of a jurisdictional
   procedural rule is a clear congressional statement, which is nowhere to be
   found in the Limitation Act.” Id. at 793.
           Unlike in Bonvillian, here, intervening Supreme Court decisions have
   not unequivocally established a clear rule for determining when a statute of
   limitations is triggered by the discovery rule. Petrella and Rotkiske left room
   for exceptions, including an exception upon which our court might have
   relied in Graper—the nature of the copyright infringement injury. 6

           6
             Graper’s reference to out-of-circuit cases using the discovery rule is also different
   from Eckstein’s citation to FEMA Trailer. Eckstein cited FEMA Trailer for an example of a
   jurisdictional statutory filing deadline and said that the Limitation Act’s deadline was
   analogous. See 672 F.3d at 315 n.12. Graper cited out-of-circuit cases merely to show that
   other circuits had reached a similar conclusion as to § 507(b), not to adopt the reasoning of
   those cases.

                                                 20
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690             Page: 21   Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                      No. 22-20333

          This case is more like Jacobs v. National Drug Intelligence Center than
   Bonvillian. In Jacobs, the defendant appealed the district court’s award of
   emotional-distress damages to the plaintiff under the Privacy Act of 1974, 5
   U.S.C. § 552a, arguing that the plaintiff was limited to out-of-pocket
   expenses. See 548 F.3d at 377. In affirming the damages award, we adhered
   to an earlier decision of this court, Johnson v. National Drug Intelligence
   Center, 700 F.2d 971 (5th Cir. 1983), which held that the Privacy Act’s
   damages remedy included emotional-distress damages, id. at 986; see Jacobs,
   548 F.3d at 377-79. To overcome our rule of orderliness, the appellant argued
   that “post-Johnson, Supreme Court cases have construed other statutory
   waivers of sovereign immunity narrowly; and therefore, were Johnson to be
   re-decided today, our court’s analysis of what damages are recoverable under
   the Privacy Act might reach a different outcome.” Jacobs, 548 F.3d at 378.
   We declined to address whether the outcome in Johnson would be different
   under a present-day analysis because the fact that those intervening Supreme
   Court cases arguably changed the method for construing statutory waivers of
   sovereign immunity did not count as an “intervening change in law” that
   would permit us to overrule Johnson. Id. “[I]n Jacobs, we specifically
   rejected the idea that later Supreme Court and other decisions that were not
   directly on point could alter the binding nature of our prior precedent.”
   United States v. Traxler, 764 F.3d 486, 489 (5th Cir. 2014). Here, Rotkiske is
   not “directly on point.” Id. It leaves room for a Copyright Act discovery
   rule grounded in the nature of the copyright infringement injury.
                                           3.
          Both circuits that have considered whether Petrella and Rotkiske
   overturned their Copyright Act discovery rules have rejected the argument
   and stuck with their precedents.

                                          21
Case: 22-20333        Document: 00516711690               Page: 22       Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                          No. 22-20333

           First, in Sohm v. Scholastic Inc., the Second Circuit “decline[d] to alter
   . . . [c]ircuit[] precedent mandating use of the discovery rule” despite Petrella
   and Rotkiske. 959 F.3d 39, 50 (2d Cir. 2020). In the Second Circuit, “a
   published opinion of a prior panel . . . is binding precedent . . . unless and until
   its rationale is overruled, implicitly or expressly, by the Supreme Court or
   [the Second Circuit] en banc.” Id. (cleaned up). The Second Circuit
   emphasized that “Petrella specifically noted that it was not passing on the
   question of the discovery rule” and that SCA Hygiene “reaffirmed that
   position.” Id. Thus, the Second Circuit concluded that “while some
   language in Petrella is perhaps consistent with the [rule that the clock starts
   running when the infringement occurs], in light of the Supreme Court’s
   direct and repeated representations that it has not opined on the propriety of
   [these] rules, it would contravene settled principles of stare decisis for this
   Court to depart from its prior holding . . . on the basis of Petrella.” Id.
   Rotkiske did “not persuade [the Second Circuit] to depart from this holding,”
   either. Id. at 50 n.2. Because “Rotskiske’s holding . . . was based on the
   Court’s interpretation of the FDCPA’s text,” not “the Copyright Act’s
   statute of limitations,” the Second Circuit decided that “Rotkiske is
   inapposite here.” 7 Id.
           Second, in Starz Entertainment, LLC v. MGM Domestic Television
   Distribution, LLC, the Ninth Circuit affirmed that Petrella did not change its
   discovery rule. See 39 F.4th 1236, 1246 (9th Cir. 2022). The Ninth Circuit
   read Petrella as “acknowledg[ing] that the ‘incident of injury’ rule it

           7
             Although Sohm adhered to the Second Circuit’s discovery rule precedents,
   following Petrella, Sohm also held that “a plaintiff’s recovery is limited to damages incurred
   during the three years prior to filing suit.” 959 F.3d at 52. Hearst does not argue that this
   court should adopt a similar interpretation of the Copyright Act, and because the parties
   have stipulated to the amount of damages to which Martinelli is entitled, this case does not
   present the issue of whether we should adopt the Sohm rule.

                                                22
Case: 22-20333     Document: 00516711690            Page: 23    Date Filed: 04/13/2023

                                     No. 22-20333

   described in the main text of the case is not the only accrual rule that federal
   courts apply in copyright infringement cases” and saying “nothing else about
   the discovery rule’s continued viability.” Id. at 1242 (cleaned up).
          Thus, “[w]ere we to hold” that the discovery rule does not apply to
   § 507(b), “we would be the only court of appeals to do so after [Petrella and
   Rotkiske].” Gahagan, 911 F.3d at 304. “We are always chary to create a
   circuit split, including when applying the rule of orderliness,” and we decline
   to do so in this case. Id. (cleaned up).
                                         III.
          For those reasons, the Supreme Court’s decisions in Petrella and
   Rotkiske did not unequivocally overrule Graper.             And under Graper,
   Martinelli’s copyright infringement claims were timely because he brought
   them within three years of discovering Hearst’s infringements. Accordingly,
   the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

                                          23