Richardson v. Commerce Media Holdings, LLC
- Paul Engelmayer
- 1:24-cv-04660
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 9
In Richardson v. Commerce Media Holdings, LLC, Judge Engelmayer denied Richardson’s reconsideration motion, leaving the copyright case closed.
Marc Richardson’s copyright-infringement case against Commerce Media Holdings, LLC, Complex Media, Inc., and the Doe defendants remains closed; the prior dismissal with prejudice remains in place.
What happened
In Richardson v. Commerce Media Holdings, LLC, Marc Richardson claimed that Commerce Media Holdings, LLC, Complex Media, Inc., and Doe defendants infringed his copyright in a photograph. The court had previously dismissed his single copyright claim with prejudice because his amended complaint did not state when the alleged infringement occurred.
Richardson asked the court to reconsider both the dismissal and its refusal to let him amend the complaint again. He argued that the pleading standard requiring an infringement date had not been formally adopted by the Second Circuit, that the court had misunderstood the issue of statutory damages, and that he should receive another chance to amend.
Judge Engelmayer denied the reconsideration motion. He held that Richardson had not identified overlooked controlling law or evidence, and that Richardson had already been warned about the missing infringement date and had received one opportunity to amend. The case remains closed.
The detailed version
- Richardson v. Commerce Media Holdings, LLC · No. 1:24-cv-04660
- Paul Engelmayer
- July 15, 2025
Background
Marc Richardson, described as a fashion photographer, posted a photograph of the rapper known as “Tyler, the Creator” online between January 18 and January 23, 2022. Richardson registered the photograph with the United States Copyright Office on April 17, 2022. His amended complaint alleged that Commerce Media Holdings, LLC, Complex Media, Inc., and several Doe defendants later posted the photograph to their Instagram profile without authorization. The amended complaint asserted one copyright-infringement claim under the Copyright Act.
On March 26, 2025, the court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss with prejudice. The court applied a pleading standard from Kelly v. L.L. Cool J, under which a copyright-infringement complaint must specify when the alleged infringement occurred. Because Richardson’s amended complaint did not state the date of the alleged infringement, the court found that it did not adequately plead the claim. The court also declined to allow another amendment because Richardson had already been given an opportunity to correct the defect after defendants’ first motion to dismiss identified it.
Richardson timely moved for reconsideration of both decisions.
Legal Standard
The court explained that reconsideration under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b) is an extraordinary remedy. It is generally available only when the moving party identifies controlling law or information that the court overlooked, an intervening change in controlling law, new evidence, clear error, or a need to prevent manifest injustice. Reconsideration is not a chance to repeat arguments already rejected or raise arguments that could have been made earlier.
Copyright-Infringement Dismissal
Richardson argued that the Second Circuit had never formally adopted the four-part pleading test from Kelly. The court agreed that the Second Circuit had not expressly adopted the test, but concluded that Kelly had been affirmed by the Second Circuit, that the Supreme Court had declined review, and that a Second Circuit summary order described the relevant requirement consistently with Kelly. The court also noted that courts in the Southern District of New York had consistently required a copyright complaint to identify when the alleged infringement occurred.
The court rejected Richardson’s argument that Kelly was irrelevant because Kelly involved a request for a more definite statement rather than a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. It explained that Kelly required compliance with the fair-notice pleading rule and that district courts had generally applied Kelly in the same procedural setting as Richardson’s case.
The court also rejected Richardson’s argument that the earlier dismissal had improperly rested on the unavailability of statutory damages. The court stated that it dismissed the amended complaint because it failed to plead the fourth Kelly requirement—the date of infringement—not because statutory damages were necessarily unavailable. The court denied reconsideration as to the copyright-infringement claim.
Leave to Amend
Richardson also argued that the court should not have dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice and should have allowed another amendment. The court disagreed. Defendants’ first motion to dismiss had specifically identified the missing infringement date, and the court had warned Richardson that he should not expect another opportunity to amend. Richardson then amended his complaint but did not add the missing date.
The court also declined to reconsider based on Richardson’s new assertion that he had not known the infringement date before filing the amended complaint. The court stated that this argument should have been raised earlier rather than for the first time on reconsideration. It therefore declined to reconsider the prior decision dismissing the amended complaint with prejudice and denying another opportunity to amend.
Disposition
Judge Paul A. Engelmayer denied Richardson’s motion for reconsideration. The clerk was directed to terminate the motion at Docket 35, and the case remains closed.
Read the full 9-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.