Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Philip Halpern
- 7:24-cv-07292
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Halpern granted Strike 3’s request to file a motion for early discovery and delay scheduling until Doe is identified.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC may proceed with its application to seek early discovery aimed at identifying the John Doe defendant; the order also concerns scheduling before Doe is named and served. The opinion does not identify Doe by name or state that Verizon Fios was ordered to disclose information.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued a person identified only as John Doe, alleging that the person used BitTorrent to infringe its copyrights. Strike 3 said it knew only the internet protocol address and not the person’s name or address.
Strike 3 asked for permission to file a motion seeking an early subpoena to Verizon Fios, before the usual conference between the parties, to learn Doe’s identity. It also asked to postpone any initial scheduling conference until Doe was named and served.
The court granted the application. The order does not itself state that the subpoena was authorized or that copyright infringement was proven. Judge Philip M. Halpern signed the order on October 16, 2024.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 7:24-cv-07292
- Philip Halpern
- Oct. 16, 2024
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued a John Doe defendant for alleged copyright infringement. According to Strike 3’s filing, the defendant’s identity was unknown, but the defendant’s internet protocol address had been assigned by Verizon Fios. Strike 3 alleged that the address had been used to infringe its copyrighted works through the BitTorrent file-distribution network.
Application
Strike 3 requested permission to file a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1) for leave to serve a third-party subpoena before the parties’ required Rule 26(f) conference. The proposed subpoena would seek identifying information from Verizon Fios. Strike 3 also requested that any initial Rule 16 scheduling conference be postponed until Doe was identified and served, and that no such conference be scheduled before then.
The filing argued that early discovery in internet copyright cases may be allowed for good cause when the plaintiff makes an initial showing of infringement, identifies a specific discovery request, lacks another way to obtain the information, needs the information centrally, and the anonymous defendant has only a limited expectation of privacy. Those points were presented in support of Strike 3’s request to file the discovery motion; the opinion text does not include a separate analysis of whether those requirements were satisfied.
Ruling
The court’s order states: “Application granted. SO ORDERED.” Thus, the court granted Strike 3’s application. Based on the text provided, the order granted the application to file the requested motion and addressed the requested scheduling postponement, but it does not separately state that the third-party subpoena itself was authorized or that Doe’s identity was disclosed.
Judge Philip M. Halpern signed the order, dated October 16, 2024.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.