Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe

Background

Strike 3 Holdings, LLC asked for permission to file unredacted versions of its First Amended Complaint, proposed summons, and return of service under seal. The plaintiff said it owns adult motion pictures distributed through several adult websites and on DVDs, and that it recorded allegedly infringing transactions from Internet Protocol address 66.65.32.20 within the BitTorrent network.

On April 15, 2024, the court had allowed Strike 3 to serve a subpoena on Spectrum, the Internet Service Provider associated with the address, to discover the subscriber’s identity. The earlier order allowed the defendant to proceed anonymously as John Doe and noted privacy concerns arising from the nature of the copyrighted material and the possibility of mistaken identification.

Strike 3 said that, after receiving the subpoena response and conducting additional investigation using publicly available resources, it identified the subscriber as the alleged infringer. It filed an amended complaint replacing the John Doe designation, but kept the defendant’s personal identifying information out of the caption. The body of the amended complaint contained the defendant’s name, address, and other information that Strike 3 said was central to its claim.

The request for provisional sealing

Strike 3 asked to file the identifying information under seal temporarily rather than permanently. It proposed keeping the information from the public until the defendant had been served and had an opportunity to raise privacy objections. Strike 3 also proposed that it not file documents containing the defendant’s name or address publicly unless the court expressly authorized it.

The request concerned the public’s presumptive right to access judicial documents and the defendant’s privacy interests. Strike 3 described differing approaches taken by courts in similar cases, including allowing provisional sealing so that a defendant can become a party and be heard before identifying information is disclosed.

Ruling

Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted the application. Information in the amended complaint identifying the defendant will provisionally remain under seal, and the same approach will apply to other filings going forward.

Within 30 days after being served, the defendant may move to seal the identifying information permanently and to proceed anonymously. The defendant must demonstrate that the relevant privacy interest outweighs the public right of access. If the defendant does not make that motion, the unredacted materials will be unsealed.

The order resolved the sealing request. It did not decide whether the defendant infringed Strike 3’s copyrighted works.