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 statute of limitations and barring his claims. We find, however, that the district court did not err in rejecting these contentions and in finding that Scholastic had “failed to meet its evidentiary burden to survive summary judgment on” statute of limitations grounds. Sohm, 2018 WL 1605214, at *11.

The district court determined that Scholastic had failed to “identify some affirmative evidence that would have been sufficient to awaken inquiry and prompt an audit” on Sohm’s part for him to have discovered the copyright infringements earlier. Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Scholastic merely maintains that Sohm never conducted an audit or contacted his agents to inquire about payments despite having the ability to do so. Nevertheless, without identifying facts or circumstances that would have prompted such an inquiry, Scholastic cannot rely on the passage of time alone to establish that Sohm should have discovered the alleged copyright infringements at issue in this case. Scholastic has therefore not demonstrated that Sohm’s claims accrued outside the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations. Accordingly, the district court properly rejected Scholastic’s affirmative defense based on the Copyright Act’s statute of limitations.

Scholastic next argues that even if the district court was correct to apply the discovery rule, it erred in allowing Sohm to recover damages for more than three years prior to when he filed his copyright infringement suit. Again pointing to Petrella, Scholastic maintains that “[t]he Supreme Court was crystal clear … that, independent of whether the injury or discovery rule applies, ‘[u]nder the [Copyright] Act’s three-year provision, an infringement is actionable within three years, and only three years, of its occurrence,’ and that ‘the infringer is insulated from liability for earlier infringements of the same work.’ ” Scholastic’s Br. at 38–39 (quoting Petrella, 572 U.S. at 671, 134 S.Ct. 1962).

On this point, we agree with Scholastic. Despite not passing on the propriety of the discovery rule in Petrella, the Supreme Court explicitly delimited damages to the three years prior to the commencement of a copyright infringement action. Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s contrary determination.

After Petrella, district courts in this Circuit have reached conflicting determinations regarding whether damages under the Copyright Act are limited to three years prior to when a copyright infringement case is filed. Compare Park v. Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, No. 17-cv-4473, slip op. at 5 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2019) (“[T]he Copyright Act provides for a three-year lookback period – a plaintiff can bring a suit for any infringing actions in the three years before the filing date, but cannot recover damages for infringements occurring more than three years before filing.”), Papazian v. Sony Music Entm’t, No. 16-cv-7911, 2017 WL 4339662, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 28, 2017) (“[B]ecause the clear and specific three-year limitation on damages under section 507(b) was necessary to the result in Petrella, it cannot be construed as dicta.”), Fischer v. Forrest, No. 14-cv-1304, 2017 WL 128705, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 13, 2017), report and recommendation adopted, 2017 WL 1063464 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 21, 2017), and Wu v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., No. 14-cv-6746, 2015 WL 5254885, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 10, 2015) (“Following Petrella, Wu can recover damages only for any Wiley infringing acts that occurred [not more than three years