Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. John Doe

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS, LLC,
Plaintiff,
v.
JOHN DOE subscriber assigned IP
address 75.83.24.53,
Defendant.
Case No.: 3:25-cv-03731-AGS-AHG
ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S
EX PARTE APPLICATION FOR
LEAVE TO SERVE A
THIRD-PARTY SUBPOENA PRIOR
TO A RULE 26(f) CONFERENCE
[ECF No. 4]
Before the Court is Plaintiff Strike 3 Holdings, LLC’s (“Plaintiff”) Ex Parte
Application for Leave to Serve a Third-Party Subpoena Prior to a Rule 26(f) Conference.
ECF No. 4. No defendant has been named or served, so no opposition or reply briefs have
been filed. For the reasons discussed below, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff’s ex parte
application.
I. BACKGROUND
On December 22, 2025, Plaintiff filed a Complaint against Defendant “John Doe,”
who is allegedly a subscriber of Spectrum and assigned Internet Protocol (“IP”) address
75.83.24.53. ECF No. 1 at ¶ 5. Plaintiff is the owner of numerous adult motion pictures,
which Plaintiff distributes through adult websites and DVDs. Id. at ¶¶ 2–3. Plaintiff asserts
that Defendant is committing “rampant and wholesale copyright infringement” by
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downloading, recording, and distributing copies of Plaintiff’s copyrighted motion pictures
without authorization through the use of the BitTorrent file distribution network. Id.
at ¶¶ 4, 18–29.
In the instant motion, Plaintiff seeks leave to conduct early discovery prior to the
mandated Rule 26(f) conference to learn Defendant’s identity. ECF No. 4. Specifically,
Plaintiff seeks an order permitting it to serve a third-party subpoena under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 45 on Spectrum, the Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) who leased the IP
address belonging to Defendant John Doe, which would require Spectrum to supply the
name and address of its subscriber to Plaintiff. ECF No. 4-1 at 7–8.1 Through service of
the third-party subpoena, Plaintiff seeks only “the true name and address of Defendant.”
Id. at 8. Additionally, Plaintiff represents to the Court that it will only use this information
to prosecute the claims made in its Complaint. Id.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
A party is generally not permitted to obtain discovery without a court order before
the parties have conferred pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f). FED. R. CIV.
P. 26(d)(1). However, courts make exceptions to allow limited discovery after a complaint
is filed to permit the plaintiff to learn the identifying information necessary to serve the
defendant. Columbia Ins. Co. v. Seescandy.com, 185 F.R.D. 573, 577 (N.D. Cal. 1999);
see, e.g., UMG Recordings, Inc. v. Doe, No. C-08-3999-RMW, 2008 WL 4104207, at *2
(N.D. Cal. Aug. 29, 2008) (noting, in an infringement case, that “a plaintiff cannot have a
discovery planning conference with an anonymous defendant[,]” thus, limited expedited
discovery would “permit the [plaintiff] to identify John Doe and serve the defendant,
permitting this case to go forward.”).
1 Due to discrepancies between original and imprinted page numbers, page numbers for
docketed materials cited in this Order refer to those imprinted by the court’s electronic case
filing system.
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Consistent with this generally recognized exception to Rule 26(f), the Ninth Circuit
has held that “‘where the identity of the alleged defendant[] [is] not [] known prior to the
filing of a complaint[,] the plaintiff should be given an opportunity through discovery to
identify the unknown defendants, unless it is clear that discovery would not uncover the
identities, or that the complaint would be dismissed on other grounds.’” Wakefield v.
Thompson, 177 F.3d 1160, 1163 (9th Cir. 1999) (quoting Gillespie v. Civiletti, 629 F.2d
637, 642 (9th Cir. 1980)).
A party who requests early or expedited discovery must make a showing of good
cause. See Semitool, Inc. v. Tokyo Electron Am., Inc., 208 F.R.D. 273, 275–76 (N.D. Cal.
2002) (applying “the conventional standard of good cause in evaluating Plaintiff’s request
for expedited discovery”). Good cause is established through a balancing test “where the
need for expedited discovery, in consideration of the administration of justice, outweighs
the prejudice to the responding party.” Id. at 276. To determine whether “good cause”
exists to permit expedited discovery to identify John Doe defendants, district courts in the
Ninth Circuit consider whether the plaintiff (1) “identif[ies] the missing party with
sufficient specificity such that the Court can determine that the defendant is a real person
or entity who could be sued in federal court”; (2) “identif[ies] all previous steps taken to
locate the elusive defendant” to ensure that plaintiff has made a good faith effort to identify
the defendant; and (3) “establish[es] to the Court’s satisfaction that plaintiff’s suit against
defendant could withstand a motion to dismiss.” Columbia Ins., 185 F.R.D. at 578–80.
Additionally, the plaintiff should demonstrate the discovery will likely lead to identifying
information that will permit service of process. Id. at 580. These factors are considered to
ensure the expedited discovery procedure “will only be employed in cases where the
plaintiff has in good faith exhausted traditional avenues for identifying a civil defendant
pre-service, and will prevent use of this method to harass or intimidate.” Id.
III. DISCUSSION
Plaintiff contends that there is good cause for this Court to allow expedited
discovery. ECF No. 4-1 at 11–17. For the reasons stated below, the Court agrees.
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a. Identification of Missing Party with Sufficient Specificity
To satisfy the first prong, Plaintiff must identify Defendant with enough specificity
to enable the Court to determine that Defendant is a real person or entity who would be
subject to the jurisdiction of this Court. Columbia Ins., 185 F.R.D. at 578. District courts
in this circuit have determined “a plaintiff identifies Doe defendants with sufficient
specificity by providing the unique IP addresses assigned to an individual defendant on the
day of the allegedly infringing conduct, and by using ‘geolocation technology’ to trace the
IP addresses to a physical point of origin.” 808 Holdings, LLC v. Collective of December
29, 2011 Sharing Hash, No. 12cv186 MMA-RBB, 2012 WL 12884688, at *4 (S.D. Cal.
May 4, 2012); see Openmind Solutions, Inc. v. Does 1-39, No. C-11-3311-MEJ, 2011 WL
4715200, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 7, 2011) (concluding that plaintiff satisfied the first factor
by identifying the defendants’ IP addresses and by tracing the IP addresses to a point of
origin within the State of California); Pink Lotus Entm’t, LLC v. Does 1-46, No. C-11-
02263, 2011 WL 2470986, at *3 (N.D. Cal. June 21, 2011) (same). Other courts have
concluded that merely identifying the IP addresses on the day of the alleged infringement
satisfies this factor. 808 Holdings, 2012 WL 12884688, at *4 (collecting cases).
Here, Plaintiff has identified the Doe Defendant with sufficient specificity. First, in
support of the present motion, Plaintiff provided a Declaration by Jorge Arco, an
independent contractor hired by General Media Systems LLC, the parent company of
Plaintiff, as a Lead Systems Administrator and Enterprise Architect. ECF No. 4-2 at 2–19
(“Ex. A”). In those roles, Mr. Arco testifies he “was part of a team that developed the
infringement detection system VXN Scan … which Strike 3 both owns and uses to identify
the IP addresses used by individuals infringing Plaintiff’s movies via the BitTorrent
protocol.” Ex. A at ¶ 41. Mr. Arco’s Declaration explains the VXN Scan system in detail,
which involves, in part, the development of a proprietary BitTorrent client that emulates
the behavior of a standard BitTorrent client by repeatedly downloading data pieces from
peers within the BitTorrent network that are distributing Plaintiff’s movies. Id.
at ¶¶ 53–56. Mr. Arco testifies that another component of the VXN Scan system is the
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PCAP2 Recorder / Capture Card, which is able to record the IP addresses connecting to the
Proprietary Client and sending the infringed copies of Plaintiff’s movies to the Proprietary
Client through the BitTorrent network. Id. at ¶¶ 58–60. Not only does a PCAP contain the
IP addresses used in the network transaction; it also records the port number and BitTorrent
client used to accomplish each transaction, and the “Info Hash” associated with the
infringing computer file, which reflects the metadata of the particular underlying .torrent
file being shared without authorization. Id. at ¶¶ 56, 58, 63, 66. The PCAP Capture Card
records PCAPs in real time and is able to record perfect copies of every network packet
received by the Proprietary Client. Id. at ¶ 63–66. Although this Order touches only on two
of the components of the VXN Scan system, Mr. Arco’s 92-paragraph Declaration sets
forth additional in-depth details of all six components of the system, providing the Court a
thorough understanding of how the system reliably pinpoints the IP addresses used by
individuals infringing Plaintiff’s movies and verifies the infringement. Mr. Arco’s
declaration also explains the Cross Reference Tool, which verifies infringement in an
additional manner, using nodes to locate peers participating in the distribution of a digital
media file associated with a specific .torrent file. Id. at ¶¶ 87–92.
Second, Plaintiff also provided a declaration by Patrick Paige, a computer forensics
expert retained by Plaintiff to analyze and retain forensic evidence captured by the VXN
Scan system. ECF No. 4-2 at 21–26 (“Ex. B”). Mr. Paige explains that VXN Scan recorded
numerous BitTorrent computer transactions with IP address 75.83.24.53 in the form of
PCAPs, and that he reviewed the PCAP to confirm that it evidences a recorded transaction
with that IP address on December 5, 2025, at 19:06:58 UTC involving the IP address
uploading a piece or pieces of a file corresponding to the hash value that is unique to one
of Plaintiff’s movies. Ex. B at ¶¶ 13–19. Mr. Paige testified that based on his experience in
2 PCAP stands for “Packet Capture.” Ex. A at ¶ 59.
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similar cases, Defendant’s ISP, Spectrum, is the only entity that can correlate the IP address
75.83.24.53 to its subscriber to pinpoint Defendant’s identity. Ex. B at ¶ 28.
Third, Plaintiff provided a declaration by Susan Stalzer, one of Plaintiff’s employees
who verified that each digital file that the Proprietary Client received through its
transactions with IP address 75.83.24.53 is a copy of one of Plaintiff’s copyrighted works,
by viewing the unauthorized motion pictures corresponding with the file hashes side-by-
side with Plaintiff’s original movies. ECF No. 4-2 at 28–30 (“Ex. C”); see also ECF No.
1-1 (Exhibit A to the Complaint, listing the hash values of the 26 torrent files received by
the Proprietary Client from the IP address 75.83.24.53).
Finally, Plaintiff provides a declaration by Emilie Kennedy, Plaintiff’s in-house
General Counsel. ECF No. 4-2 at 32–34 (“Ex. D”). Ms. Kennedy explains that after
Plaintiff received infringement data from VXN Scan identifying IP address 75.83.24.53 as
infringing its works, the IP address was automatically input into Maxmind’s Geolocation
Database on September 30, 2024, which traced the IP address location to San Diego,
California, within this Court’s jurisdiction. Ex. D at ¶¶ 4–5. Plaintiff has since repeated the
trace through the Geolocation Database twice more, prior to filing the Complaint and prior
to filing the present Motion, confirming the IP address continues to trace to this District, to
San Diego, California. Id. at ¶¶ 6–7; see ECF No. 4-2 at 36. The Court is satisfied that these
multiple geolocation traces over the course of multiple months indicating that the
Defendant is located in this District are reliably accurate.
Based on all of the information above, the Court concludes Plaintiff has provided a
sufficient showing that it seeks to sue a real person subject to the Court’s jurisdiction.
Likewise, if Plaintiff obtains the identifying information from the ISP for the subscriber
assigned the IP address at issue, the information sought in the subpoena would likely enable
Plaintiff to serve Defendant. Therefore, the Court finds Plaintiff satisfied the “sufficient
specificity” threshold.
/ /
/ /
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b. Previous Attempts to Locate Defendant
Next, Plaintiff is required to describe all steps taken to identify the Doe defendant in
a good-faith effort to locate and serve them. Plaintiff states that it attempted to locate
Defendant by searching for Defendant’s IP address using online search engines and other
web search tools. ECF No. 4-1 at 14. Plaintiff also reviewed numerous sources of authority
such as legislative reports, agency websites, informational technology guides, etc.
regarding whether it is possible to identify such a defendant by other means, and
extensively discussed this issue with its computer investigators and cyber security
consultants. Id. Despite these diligent efforts, Plaintiff was unable to identify any means of
obtaining the identity of Defendant other than through subpoenaing the information from
the ISP. Id.; see also Ex. B at ¶ 28. Thus, the Court finds Plaintiff has shown it made a
good-faith effort to identify and locate Defendant before resorting to filing the instant
motion.
c. Whether Plaintiff Can Withstand a Motion to Dismiss
Lastly, Plaintiff must establish it could survive a motion to dismiss. See FED. R. CIV.
P. 12(b); Columbia Ins., 185 F.R.D. at 579. To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to
state a claim upon which relief can be granted, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual
matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v.
Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570
(2007)). To present a prima facie case of copyright infringement, Plaintiff must show: (1)
ownership of a valid copyright; and (2) that Defendant violated the copyright owner’s
exclusive rights under the Copyright Act. Range Road Music, Inc. v. East Coast Foods,
Inc., 668 F.3d 1148, 1153 (9th Cir. 2012). In addition, for direct infringement Plaintiff is
required to show causation by Defendant. Perfect 10, Inc. v. Giganews, Inc., 847 F.3d 657,
666 (9th Cir. 2017).
Here, Plaintiff’s Complaint clearly alleges that Plaintiff owns a valid copyright in
the works at issue, which are registered with the United States Copyright Office. See ECF
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No. 1 at ¶¶ 43, 44, 46, 50, 51.3 And again, Ms. Stalzer attests that she reviewed the files
correlating to the hashes identified in Exhibit A to the Complaint and confirmed that they
are “identical, strikingly similar or substantially similar” to Strike 3’s original copyrighted
Works. Ex. C at ¶¶ 7–11; ECF No. 1 at ¶¶ 34–35. Plaintiff’s Complaint also alleges
Defendant used BitTorrent to copy and distribute the copyrighted works without
authorization, and that the infringement was continuous and ongoing. ECF No. 1 at ¶¶ 4,
19–30, 33–36, 45–48. Thus, Plaintiff’s Complaint has stated a claim for copyright
infringement against the Doe Defendant sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.
Additionally, Plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts to show it could withstand a motion to
dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction or a motion for improper venue, because
Defendant’s IP address was traced to locations in this District. Accordingly, the Court
concludes Plaintiff has met the third prong necessary to establish good cause for granting
early discovery.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, and for good cause shown, the Court GRANTS
Plaintiff’s ex parte application for leave to serve a subpoena prior to a Rule 26(f)
conference. ECF No. 4. However, the Court is cognizant of the potential embarrassment of
being identified in this type of case and “shares the growing concern about unscrupulous
tactics used by certain plaintiffs, especially in the adult film industry, to shake down the
owners of IP addresses.” Malibu Media, LLC v. Does 1-5, No. 12-Civ-2950-JPO, 2012 WL
2001968, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. June 1, 2012). Anticipating and sharing these concerns, Plaintiff
invites the Court to issue a protective order establishing procedural safeguards if the Court
3 Exhibit A to the Complaint, which shows the hash values of the purportedly infringing
movies downloaded from the IP address 75.83.24.53, also contains the United States
Copyright Office registration information of the works that correspond with those hash
files. ECF No. 1-1.
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finds such procedures appropriate. ECF No. 4-1 at 18. Accordingly, the Court ORDERS
as follows:
1. Plaintiff shall attach a copy of this Order to any subpoena.
2. Plaintiff may serve the ISP with a Rule 45 subpoena commanding the ISP to
provide Plaintiff with only the true name and address of the Defendant to
whom the ISP assigned an IP address as set forth on Exhibit A to the
Complaint. The ISP is not to release the Defendant’s telephone number or
email address.
3. Within fourteen (14) calendar days after service of the subpoena, the ISP shall
notify the subscriber that his or her identity has been subpoenaed by Plaintiff.
The ISP must also provide a copy of this Order along with the required notice
to the subscriber whose identity is sought pursuant to this Order.
4. The subscriber whose identity has been subpoenaed shall have thirty (30)
calendar days from the date of such notice to challenge the disclosure of his
or her name and contact information by filing an appropriate pleading with
this Court contesting the subpoena. A subscriber who moves to quash or
modify the subpoena may proceed anonymously as “John Doe,” and shall
remain anonymous until the Court orders that the identifying information may
be released.
5. If the ISP wishes to move to quash the subpoena, it shall do so before the
return date of the subpoena. The return date of the subpoena must allow for
at least forty-five (45) days from service to production. If a motion to quash
or other challenge is brought, the ISP shall preserve the information sought
by Plaintiff in the subpoena pending resolution of such motion or challenge.
6. Plaintiff may only use the information disclosed in response to a Rule 45
subpoena served on the ISP for the purpose of protecting and enforcing
Plaintiff’s rights as set forth in its Complaint. If Defendant wishes to proceed
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anonymously, Plaintiff may not release any identifying information without a
court order allowing the release of the information.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Dated: January 9, 2026
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