Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Nelson Roman
- 7:25-cv-05669
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Roman directed the clerk to terminate a filing about pre-service discovery and scheduling.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC and the unidentified John Doe defendant are affected. The requested discovery would also involve Optimum Online, the Internet service provider identified in the plaintiff’s letter.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued a John Doe defendant for alleged copyright infringement, but said it did not know the defendant’s name or address. The plaintiff identified the defendant only through an Internet Protocol address associated with an Internet service provider.
The plaintiff asked to file a motion seeking permission to subpoena the provider before the parties’ required discovery conference, so it could learn the defendant’s identity. It also asked the court to postpone or not schedule the initial case-management conference until the defendant was identified and served.
The filing states that the clerk was directed to terminate the entry at ECF No. 6. The text does not clearly state whether the underlying request was granted or denied. The filing was signed by Judge Nelson S. Roman.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 7:25-cv-05669
- Nelson Roman
- July 22, 2025
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC filed a copyright-infringement case against a John Doe defendant. According to the plaintiff’s letter, the defendant’s name and address were not known. The plaintiff said it had identified an Internet Protocol address that it alleged had been used to infringe its copyrighted works through the BitTorrent file-distribution network. The plaintiff also said that Optimum Online, the Internet service provider associated with the address, maintained records that could identify the subscriber.
Requested discovery and scheduling relief
The plaintiff requested permission to file a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1) for early third-party discovery. Specifically, it sought leave to serve a subpoena on the Internet service provider before the parties held the conference generally required by Rule 26(f). The requested discovery was intended to identify the Doe defendant. The plaintiff also requested that any initial scheduling conference under Rule 16 be postponed, or not scheduled, until the defendant was identified and served.
The plaintiff argued that courts in Internet copyright cases may allow this type of early discovery for good cause when the plaintiff makes a preliminary showing of infringement, presents a specific discovery request, lacks another way to obtain the information, needs the information to proceed, and the defendant has only a limited expectation of privacy. These were the plaintiff’s arguments; the text provided does not clearly show that the court adopted them or ruled on the merits of the copyright claim.
Court action
The filing states that the clerk was directed to terminate the entry at ECF No. 6. The supplied text is fragmented at the point describing the court’s response and does not clearly say whether the request to file the early-discovery motion, the scheduling request, or both were granted or denied. Judge Nelson S. Roman signed the filing on July 22, 2025.
Classification
This is a procedural order because it concerns pre-service discovery and case scheduling rather than the merits of the alleged copyright infringement.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.