Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe
- Louis Stanton
- 1:24-cv-03212
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 2
In Strike 3 Holdings v. Doe, Judge Stanton received the plaintiff’s request to seek early discovery identifying the defendant; the provided text contains no ruling.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC, the unidentified Doe defendant, and Spectrum, the Internet service provider from which the plaintiff seeks identifying information.
What happened
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe is a letter from the plaintiff’s lawyer asking the court for permission to file a motion seeking early discovery. The plaintiff knows the defendant only by an Internet address and wants information from Spectrum to identify that person.
Strike 3 Holdings says the defendant used the BitTorrent network to infringe its copyrights. It asks to seek a subpoena before the parties’ required initial conference and to delay any scheduling conference until the defendant is identified and served.
The provided text does not show a ruling by Judge Stanton. It contains only the plaintiff’s request and arguments for why early discovery should be allowed.
The detailed version
- Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe · No. 1:24-cv-03212
- Louis Stanton
- May 20, 2024
Nature of the document
The supplied text is a letter from Jacqueline M. James, the plaintiff’s lawyer, presenting a pre-motion request. It is not a court order or an opinion stating that the court granted or denied the request.
Background
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC brought the case against a John Doe defendant whose name and address were not known. The letter says the defendant was identified only through an Internet Protocol address. Strike 3 Holdings alleges that the address was used through the BitTorrent file-distribution network to commit direct copyright infringement.
The letter states that Strike 3 Holdings owns three subscription-based adult websites and the copyrights to movies distributed by those websites. It seeks to pursue copyright-infringement claims and says that Spectrum, the Internet service provider, may have records connecting the Internet address to a customer’s identity.
Request
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(d)(1), discovery generally cannot begin before the parties’ Rule 26(f) conference unless the court permits it. Strike 3 Holdings asks for permission to file a motion seeking leave to serve a third-party subpoena on Spectrum before that conference. The requested discovery would seek information identifying the Doe defendant.
Strike 3 Holdings also asks the court to adjourn any initial scheduling conference, or not schedule one, until the defendant is identified and served. The letter argues that early discovery is justified because the plaintiff expects to show an initial claim of copyright infringement, the request would be specific, no other method would provide the needed information, the information is central to the case, and the defendant has only a limited expectation of privacy in the alleged transmission or distribution of copyrighted material.
Ruling and present status
The supplied text contains no ruling by Judge Louis Stanton. It does not state that the request was granted, denied, or otherwise resolved. The text therefore reports only Strike 3 Holdings’ request and arguments.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.