Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:22-cv-00793
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Karas granted more time to serve Doe and allowed a subpoena seeking Doe’s identity.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC received more time to serve the unidentified defendant and permission to subpoena the defendant’s internet service provider. The unidentified subscriber may be identified through that subpoena and remains the defendant in the case.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings sued an unidentified internet subscriber, alleging that the subscriber copied and shared its works through BitTorrent. The plaintiff said it could not identify or serve the subscriber without subpoenaing the subscriber’s internet provider.
The court granted the plaintiff’s request for 60 more days to serve the defendant, extending the deadline to June 30, 2022. It also granted the plaintiff’s motion to issue a subpoena to the internet provider before the parties’ required initial conference.
Judge Kenneth M. Karas directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the pending motions.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 7:22-cv-00793
- Kenneth Karas
- May 4, 2022
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued an unidentified internet subscriber assigned IP address 68.197.204.188, alleging direct infringement of the plaintiff’s works through the BitTorrent protocol. The plaintiff’s lawyer stated that the subscriber’s identity was unknown and that the plaintiff could not serve the defendant until it learned that identity.
The plaintiff first asked for permission to issue a subpoena to the defendant’s internet service provider before the parties held the conference normally required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f). The court granted permission to file that motion on March 24, 2022. The plaintiff then filed the motion on April 4, 2022, and it remained pending when the plaintiff requested more time to serve the defendant.
Rulings
The court granted the plaintiff’s request for a 60-day extension of the deadline for serving the summons and amended complaint, moving the deadline from May 1, 2022, to June 30, 2022.
The court also granted the plaintiff’s motion for leave to serve a third-party subpoena on the defendant’s internet service provider before the Rule 26(f) conference. The court cited other decisions from the Southern District of New York that had approved similar subpoenas in copyright-infringement cases.
The court directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the pending motions, identified as Docket Numbers 8 and 10.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.