Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:24-cv-00654
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Karas allowed early discovery from the internet provider to identify the defendant and postponed scheduling.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC received permission to seek early identity-related discovery and to postpone the initial scheduling conference. The unidentified Doe defendant and Spectrum, the identified internet service provider, are affected by the requested discovery process, although the text does not state that the subpoena itself was authorized.
What happened
In Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, the plaintiff sued an unidentified person for alleged copyright infringement involving the BitTorrent file-sharing network. The plaintiff knew the person only through an internet protocol address and said the internet provider, Spectrum, could identify the subscriber.
The plaintiff asked to file a motion for permission to serve Spectrum with a subpoena before the parties’ required discovery-planning conference. It also asked the court to delay the initial scheduling conference until the defendant could be identified and served.
The court granted both requests. It granted leave to file the motion seeking the early subpoena and granted the request to postpone, and not schedule, the initial conference until the defendant was named and served. Judge Kenneth M. Karas entered the order on March 19, 2024.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 7:24-cv-00654
- Kenneth Karas
- Mar. 19, 2024
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued a John Doe defendant whose name and address were not known. According to the plaintiff’s filing, the defendant had used an internet protocol address in connection with alleged direct copyright infringement through the BitTorrent file-distribution network. The plaintiff stated that Spectrum, the internet service provider associated with the address, maintained records that could identify the subscriber assigned to that address.
Requests
The plaintiff requested permission under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1) to file a motion seeking leave to serve Spectrum with a third-party subpoena before the parties held the required Rule 26(f) conference. The requested discovery was intended to learn the Doe defendant’s identity. The plaintiff also requested that any initial Rule 16 scheduling conference be postponed, and that no such conference be scheduled, until the defendant was identified and served.
The plaintiff argued that early discovery was supported by good cause and cited factors used in internet copyright cases, including a preliminary showing of infringement, a specific discovery request, the absence of another way to obtain the identity, the importance of the information, and the defendant’s limited privacy interest. The text provided does not show that the court independently ruled on the underlying copyright-infringement claim or directly authorized service of the subpoena itself.
Ruling
The court granted the plaintiff’s request for leave to file a motion under Rule 26(d)(1) seeking to serve the third-party subpoena before the Rule 26(f) conference. It also granted the plaintiff’s request to adjourn the initial Rule 16 scheduling conference and not schedule any Rule 16 conference until the defendant was named and served. The order was signed by Judge Kenneth M. Karas on March 19, 2024.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.