Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Nelson Roman
- 7:25-cv-06418
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Roman directed termination of the plaintiff’s request for early subpoena discovery and delayed scheduling.
The order affected Strike 3 Holdings, LLC’s request for early discovery and scheduling relief. The unidentified defendant, named as Doe, was the person whose identity the requested subpoena sought to learn.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued an unidentified defendant called Doe and asked to seek information from internet provider Verizon Fios before the parties’ required discovery conference. The request sought to learn Doe’s identity from an Internet Protocol address.
The plaintiff said Doe used the BitTorrent file-sharing network to infringe its copyrighted works. It also asked the court to delay any initial scheduling conference until Doe was identified and served.
On August 19, 2025, Judge Nelson S. Roman directed the clerk to terminate motion No. 6. The opinion does not say that the request was granted or denied, and it does not decide the copyright claims.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 7:25-cv-06418
- Nelson Roman
- Aug. 19, 2025
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC filed this action against an Internet subscriber identified as “John Doe.” The plaintiff said it did not know the defendant’s name or address. It alleged that the defendant used the BitTorrent file-distribution network to directly infringe the plaintiff’s copyrighted works.
The plaintiff stated that Verizon Fios, the defendant’s internet service provider, could use the Internet Protocol address associated with the alleged activity to identify the subscriber. It also said that internet providers generally keep the relevant assignment logs for only a short time.
Request
The plaintiff submitted a pre-motion request for permission to file a motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1). That proposed motion would seek leave to serve a third-party subpoena on Verizon Fios before the parties held the required Rule 26(f) conference. The plaintiff also asked the court to postpone any initial scheduling conference, or not schedule one, until the defendant was identified and served.
The plaintiff argued that there was good cause for early discovery. It said it would show a preliminary claim of copyright infringement, make a specific request, show that no alternative way existed to obtain the defendant’s identity, establish that the information was central to the case, and show that the defendant had only a limited expectation of privacy.
Court’s Action
The order states: “The Clerk of Court is directed to terminate the motion at No. 6.” It does not expressly state that the request was granted, denied, granted in part, or denied in part. The order also does not decide whether Doe infringed copyright or otherwise reach the merits of the copyright claims.
Classification
This is a procedural order because it concerns early discovery and scheduling rather than deciding the underlying copyright dispute. The disposition described in the opinion is termination of motion No. 6.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.