Strike 3 Holdings,LLC v. Doe

Background

The supplied document is a letter from Strike 3 Holdings, LLC’s lawyer to Judge Kenneth M. Karas. Strike 3 sued an unidentified defendant, referred to as “John Doe,” whose name and address were not known. The letter says Strike 3 owns copyrights in movies distributed through three subscription-based adult websites and claims the defendant used BitTorrent to infringe those copyrights.

Requested discovery

Strike 3 asked for permission to file a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1) seeking early discovery. Specifically, it wanted to serve a subpoena under Rule 45 on Verizon Fios, the internet service provider associated with the identified internet protocol address. Strike 3 argued that the provider’s records could identify the subscriber and that the records might be kept only for a short time.

The letter asserted that courts generally consider whether a copyright plaintiff has made an initial showing of infringement, whether the discovery request is specific, whether other ways of obtaining the information exist, whether the information is central to the case, and whether the unnamed defendant has only a limited expectation of privacy. These were arguments made by Strike 3; the supplied document does not contain a separate analysis by the court of those factors.

Strike 3 also requested that any initial scheduling conference be postponed until the defendant was identified and served, or that the conference not be scheduled before then.

Court action and effect

The document is marked “Ordered” and dated June 20, 2024. That notation indicates approval of Strike 3’s request to file a motion seeking permission for the third-party subpoena and to postpone the scheduling conference. The supplied text does not show a ruling granting the subpoena itself, identifying the defendant, or deciding the copyright-infringement claims. The order therefore concerns early discovery and case scheduling, not the merits of the lawsuit.