Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Vernon Broderick
- 1:24-cv-07286
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Broderick granted leave to seek early discovery to identify the defendant through a third-party subpoena.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC may file a motion seeking early discovery to identify the John Doe defendant. The unidentified internet subscriber and Verizon Fios may be affected if the later motion is filed and granted.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued an unidentified John Doe, alleging that the internet subscriber associated with a particular internet-protocol address used BitTorrent to infringe Strike 3’s copyrights. Strike 3 said it could not yet identify or locate the defendant.
Strike 3 asked for permission to file a motion seeking early discovery from Verizon Fios, the internet service provider, before the parties’ required initial conference. The requested discovery would seek the subscriber’s identity, and Strike 3 also asked to postpone any scheduling conference until the defendant was identified and served.
The court granted Strike 3 leave to file the motion seeking permission for the third-party subpoena, requiring that motion to be filed by October 30, 2024. Judge Vernon S. Broderick’s order does not itself authorize the subpoena or state a disposition of the request to postpone the scheduling conference.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 1:24-cv-07286
- Vernon Broderick
- Oct. 17, 2024
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued a John Doe defendant whose name and address were not known. Strike 3 stated that it owns three subscription-based adult websites and the copyrights to the movies distributed through those websites. It alleged that the internet-protocol address assigned to the defendant had been used repeatedly to infringe its copyrighted works through the BitTorrent file-distribution network.
Strike 3 said the internet service provider, Verizon Fios, maintains records connecting assigned internet-protocol addresses with customer identities. It also stated that such records may be kept only for a short time.
Request
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1), discovery generally cannot be requested before the parties’ Rule 26(f) conference unless the court permits it. Strike 3 asked for leave to file a motion seeking permission to serve a third-party subpoena on Verizon Fios before that conference. The proposed discovery was intended to identify the John Doe defendant. Strike 3 also requested that any initial scheduling conference be postponed until the defendant was identified and served.
Ruling
The court granted Strike 3 leave to file the motion seeking permission to serve the third-party subpoena. The court stated that the motion should be filed by October 30, 2024. The order did not itself grant permission to serve the subpoena, decide the copyright-infringement claim, or state a disposition of the request to postpone the scheduling conference. The order was signed by Judge Vernon S. Broderick.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.