The statute of limitations on copyright infringement is three years for civil lawsuits and five years for criminal prosecutions. The civil clock usually starts when you discovered the infringement, or when a reasonably diligent person would have discovered it, not when the unauthorized use first occurred. Two recent Supreme Court decisions have reshaped how that window works, and a registration requirement can quietly consume part of it before you ever reach a courtroom.
The Three-Year Civil Deadline
Federal law is direct: no civil copyright infringement lawsuit can go forward unless it’s filed within three years after the claim accrued.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 507 – Limitations on Actions That rule covers the vast majority of copyright disputes, where an owner sues for money damages or a court order stopping the infringing activity.
Each separate act of infringement starts its own three-year clock. The Supreme Court established this “separate accrual” rule in Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (2014). If someone has been selling unauthorized copies of your book for six years, each sale is a distinct infringing act with its own deadline.2Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. You don’t lose the right to sue over this year’s sales just because last year’s are time-barred. That matters enormously for ongoing infringement, which is the pattern most copyright holders actually encounter.
When the Clock Starts
The three-year countdown doesn’t necessarily begin when the infringement happens. Federal courts overwhelmingly apply the “discovery rule,” which starts the clock when you discovered the infringement or when you reasonably should have discovered it through ordinary diligence. As of mid-2025, every numbered federal circuit applies the discovery rule, with only the D.C. Circuit yet to weigh in.
Here’s how that plays out. A photographer took a picture in 2018 and in 2025 discovers an online retailer has been using it without permission since 2020. Under the discovery rule, the three-year window runs from 2025, not 2020. The photographer still has time to act even though the infringement started five years ago.
The rule cuts both ways. If the unauthorized use was out in the open and easy to find, a court may decide you should have caught it sooner. The burden falls on you to show your lack of awareness was reasonable. An infringer who plastered your work across a major retail website has a stronger argument that you should have noticed than one who buried it in an obscure corner of the internet.
How Far Back Damages Can Reach
Until 2024, federal courts disagreed on a critical question: if you file a timely lawsuit under the discovery rule, can you recover money for infringements that happened more than three years before you filed? Some courts capped damages at the three years immediately before the lawsuit, even when the plaintiff didn’t know about the infringement during that earlier period.
The Supreme Court settled this in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy (2024), ruling that a copyright owner with a timely claim can recover damages for the entire period of infringement, no matter how far back it stretches.3Oyez. Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy The Court found that imposing a separate three-year damages cap “lacks textual support and effectively nullifies the discovery rule.” Under the old approach used by some courts, years of provable harm were simply off the table. Now, if your claim is timely, your damages reach back to when the infringement began.
Registration Can Eat Into Your Window
Copyright protection exists the moment you create an original work, but the right to sue in federal court does not. Before you can file an infringement lawsuit, the Copyright Office must have processed your registration application and either registered the copyright or refused the application.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 411 – Registration and Civil Infringement Actions Submitting the application isn’t enough. The Supreme Court confirmed this in Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com (2019), holding that registration is complete only after the Copyright Office finishes processing it.5Oyez. Fourth Estate Public Benefit Corp. v. Wall-Street.com
This is where many copyright holders get tripped up. Copyright Office processing times can run several months or longer, and the three-year statute of limitations keeps ticking while you wait. If you discover infringement near the end of your limitations window and haven’t registered, you could run out of time. Register your works early, ideally before any infringement occurs.
Doctrines That Pause or Limit the Deadline
Several legal doctrines can stop the clock or change how it applies.
Equitable tolling applies when the infringer actively concealed the unauthorized use. If you can show the infringer took deliberate steps to hide what they were doing, such as stripping metadata from your photographs or using shell companies to obscure their identity, a court can pause the limitations period for the duration of the concealment. The key is proving affirmative deception, not just that the infringement was hard to find.
Laches is not a defense against timely claims. Before Petrella, defendants sometimes argued that a copyright holder who waited too long to sue, even within the three-year window, had forfeited their rights through the equitable doctrine of laches. The Supreme Court rejected that argument, holding that laches cannot bar a claim for damages brought within the statutory period.2Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center. Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. A court can still consider your delay when fashioning equitable relief like an injunction, but it can’t throw out your damages claim entirely.
Military service tolling protects copyright holders on active duty. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, a servicemember’s time on active duty is excluded from calculating any statute of limitations. A photographer deployed for 18 months would have that time added to the three-year civil window. The servicemember doesn’t need to prove the deployment actually prevented them from filing.
Criminal Copyright Infringement: Five Years
Copyright infringement becomes a federal crime when it’s done willfully for commercial gain, or when it involves reproducing or distributing copies with a total retail value exceeding $1,000 during any 180-day period.6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 17 U.S. Code 506 – Criminal Offenses Federal prosecutors have five years from the date of the offense to bring charges, under the general federal criminal statute of limitations.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 3282 – Offenses Not Capital
Criminal cases are brought by the government, not the copyright holder, so the decision to prosecute lies with federal authorities. Most copyright disputes never reach this level. Criminal prosecution is reserved for large-scale or commercially motivated piracy.
What Happens When the Deadline Passes
Once the statute of limitations expires on a particular infringement, the claim becomes time-barred. The alleged infringer can move to dismiss, and the court will almost certainly grant it. You lose the ability to recover damages or obtain a court order related to those specific past acts.
The word “specific” matters. Because of the separate accrual rule, the expiration of one claim doesn’t necessarily kill your entire case. If an infringer has been selling unauthorized copies for years, the older sales may be time-barred while the recent ones remain actionable. The statute of limitations works less like a single switch and more like a rolling window: old claims fall off the back while new infringing acts generate fresh claims at the front. Even if you’ve waited longer than you should have, it’s worth evaluating whether recent acts still give you a viable claim.