Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Gregory Woods
- 1:24-cv-08971
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Woods granted permission to seek early subpoena discovery and adjourned the initial conference.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC may file a motion seeking early third-party subpoena discovery aimed at identifying the unnamed defendant. The unidentified Doe defendant and Astound Broadband/RCN, Inc. are affected by the requested identification process, and the initial pretrial conference was postponed.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe concerns Strike 3’s request to identify an unnamed defendant accused of using the BitTorrent network to infringe Strike 3’s copyrights. Strike 3 said the defendant was known only by an Internet Protocol address and that Astound Broadband/RCN, Inc. could identify the subscriber connected to that address.
Strike 3 asked for permission to file a motion seeking a subpoena to the internet service provider before the parties’ required early discovery conference. It also asked the court to postpone the initial scheduling conference until the defendant could be identified and served.
Judge Woods granted the application and granted Strike 3 permission to file the motion for early third-party subpoena discovery. The motion was due by January 13, 2025, and the initial conference was adjourned without a new date. The order did not decide whether copyright infringement occurred or whether the subpoena itself should issue.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 1:24-cv-08971
- Gregory Woods
- Dec. 23, 2024
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued an unidentified defendant designated as John Doe. Strike 3 alleged that the defendant used the BitTorrent file-distribution network to directly infringe Strike 3’s copyrights. Because Strike 3 knew the defendant only through an Internet Protocol address, it sought information from the internet service provider associated with that address, identified as Astound Broadband/RCN, Inc.
Strike 3 requested permission under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1) to file a motion seeking leave to serve a third-party subpoena before the parties’ Rule 26(f) conference. Strike 3 argued that early discovery was necessary to learn the defendant’s identity and that internet service providers may retain identifying logs only for a limited period. Strike 3 also requested that the initial Rule 16 scheduling conference be postponed until the defendant was identified and served.
Court’s Action
The court granted Strike 3’s application. Specifically, the court granted Strike 3’s request for leave to file a motion seeking permission to serve a third-party subpoena under Rule 26(d)(1). The court set January 13, 2025, as the deadline for that motion. The court also adjourned the initial pretrial conference scheduled for March 27, 2025, without setting a new date.
This order allowed Strike 3 to seek authorization for the subpoena; it did not itself authorize service of the subpoena, identify the Doe defendant, or decide the merits of Strike 3’s copyright-infringement claims. Judge Gregory H. Woods entered the order on December 23, 2024.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.