Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Gregory Woods
- 1:24-cv-02521
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Woods granted early-discovery permission and postponed the initial scheduling conference.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC may file a motion seeking early discovery from Verizon Fios to identify the Doe defendant. The unidentified defendant’s identity and the initial scheduling conference are also affected.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC sued an unidentified internet subscriber for alleged copyright infringement involving files shared through the BitTorrent network. The plaintiff knows the defendant only by an internet protocol address and says Verizon Fios can identify the subscriber.
The plaintiff asked to file a motion seeking permission to serve a subpoena on Verizon Fios before the parties’ required discovery-planning conference. It also asked the court to postpone the initial scheduling conference until the defendant is identified and served.
Judge Gregory H. Woods granted the request to file the motion, set April 29, 2024, as the deadline for that motion, and postponed the June 6, 2024 initial conference indefinitely. The order did not decide whether copyright infringement occurred.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 1:24-cv-02521
- Gregory Woods
- Apr. 8, 2024
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC brought a copyright-infringement action against a John Doe defendant whose name and address were not known. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant used the BitTorrent file-distribution network to infringe its copyrighted works. The plaintiff said the defendant was identified in the action by an internet protocol address assigned by Verizon Fios.
Requested early discovery
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1), discovery generally cannot begin before the parties’ Rule 26(f) conference unless the court allows it. The plaintiff asked for permission to file a motion seeking leave to serve a third-party subpoena on Verizon Fios before that conference. The requested subpoena was intended to obtain information identifying the Doe defendant. The plaintiff also asked the court to postpone any initial scheduling conference until the defendant was identified and served.
Ruling
The court granted the plaintiff’s request for leave to file a motion seeking permission to serve the third-party subpoena. The court stated that the plaintiff’s motion was due no later than April 29, 2024. It also postponed the initial conference scheduled for June 6, 2024, indefinitely, and directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the pending request at Docket No. 7. This order addressed the timing of discovery and case scheduling; it did not decide the merits of the copyright-infringement allegations.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.