Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_17-cv-02302/USCOURTS-casd-3_17-cv-02302-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 820
Nature of Suit: Copyright
Cause of Action: 17:0101 Copyright Infringement (definitions)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS, LLC, 

 Plaintiff, 

v. 

JOHN DOE, subscriber assigned IP 

address 68.8.146.252,

 Defendant.

Case No. 17-cv-02302-MMA-JLB 

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]

Presently before the Court is Plaintiff’s Ex Parte Application for Leave to Serve a 

Third Party Subpoena Prior to a Rule 26(f) Conference. (ECF No. 4.) No opposition was 

filed, as no defendant has been named or served. For the reasons set forth below, Plaintiff’s 

Motion is GRANTED. 

I. BACKGROUND 

This is one of numerous cases filed by Plaintiff alleging copyright infringement 

against a defendant using the BitTorrent file-sharing system.

1

 Plaintiff is the copyright 

owner of motion pictures distributed through adult content websites Blacked, Tushy, and 

 

1 On November 14, 2017, Strike 3 holdings filed eight separate cases against John Does in this District: 

17-cv-2302-MMA-JLB; 17-cv-2312-MMA-NLS; 17-cv-2313-AJB-JMA; 17-cv-2315-MMA-AGS; 17-

cv-2316-GPC-KSC; 17-cv-2317-JAH-BLM; 17-cv-2318-DMS-BLM; and 17-cv-2319-JAH-BGS. 

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Vixen. (ECF No. 4-2 at 3.) Plaintiff alleges that the person or entity assigned Internet 

Protocol (“IP”) address 68.8.146.252 has illegally copied, downloaded, and/or distributed 

thirty-nine of Plaintiff’s motion pictures through his, her, or its use of the online BitTorrent 

file distribution network. (ECF No. 1 at ¶ 4.) On November 14, 2017, Plaintiff commenced 

the instant action by filing a Complaint against Defendant “John Doe, subscriber assigned 

IP address 68.8.146.252.” (ECF No. 1.) The Complaint alleges a single claim of copyright 

infringement against Defendant. (Id. at ¶¶ 34-39.) 

Because Defendant used the Internet to commit the alleged infringement, Plaintiff 

knows Defendant only by his, her, or its IP address, which Plaintiff believes was assigned 

to Defendant by the Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) Cox Communications. (ECF No. 4-

1 at 6.) In the present Motion, Plaintiff asserts that Cox Communications “is the only party 

with the information necessary to identify Defendant by correlating the IP address with 

John Doe’s identity” and that “[w]ithout this information, Plaintiff cannot serve Defendant 

nor pursue this lawsuit and protect its copyrights.” (Id. at 6-7.) Accordingly, Plaintiff 

seeks leave to serve a Rule 45 subpoena on Cox Communications to obtain the name and 

address associated with IP address 68.8.146.252. (Id.) 

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

Discovery is generally not permitted before the parties have conferred pursuant to 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(f) unless authorized by court order. Fed R. Civ. P. 

26(d)(1). “[H]owever, in rare cases, courts have made exceptions, permitting limited 

discovery to ensue after filing of the complaint to permit the plaintiff to learn the 

identifying facts necessary to permit service on the defendant.” Columbia Ins. Co. v. 

Seescandy.com, 185 F.R.D. 573, 577 (N.D. Cal. 1999). Requests to conduct discovery 

prior to a Rule 26(f) conference are granted upon a showing of good cause by the moving 

party, which may be found “where the need for expedited discovery, in consideration of 

the administration of justice, outweighs the prejudice to the responding party.” Semitool, 

Inc. v. Tokyo Electron Am., Inc., 208 F.R.D. 273, 275–76 (N.D. Cal. 2002). “A district 

court’s decision to grant discovery to determine jurisdictional facts is a matter of 

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discretion.” Columbia Ins. Co., 185 F.R.D. at 578 (citing Wells Fargo & Co. v. Wells 

Fargo Express Co., 556 F.2d 406, 430 n.24 (9th Cir. 1977)).

District courts in the Ninth Circuit apply a three-factor test for determining whether 

good cause exists to allow for expedited discovery to identify Doe defendants. See

Columbia Ins. Co., 185 F.R.D. at 578–80. “First, the plaintiff should identify the missing 

party with sufficient specificity such that the Court can determine that defendant is a real 

person or entity who could be sued in federal court.” Id. at 578. Second, the plaintiff 

“should identify all previous steps taken to locate the elusive defendant” to ensure that the 

plaintiff has made a good faith effort to identify and serve process on the defendant. Id. at 

579. Third, the plaintiff “should establish to the Court’s satisfaction that plaintiff’s suit 

against defendant could withstand a motion to dismiss.” Id. (citing Gillespie, 629 F.2d at 

642). Further, the plaintiff “should file a request for discovery with the Court, along with 

a statement of reasons justifying the specific discovery requested as well as identification 

of a limited number of persons or entities on whom discovery process might be served and 

for which there is a reasonable likelihood that the discovery process will lead to identifying 

information about defendant that would make service of process possible.” Id. at 580 

(citing Gillespie, 629 F.2d at 642). 

III. DISCUSSION

A. Early Discovery

Plaintiff seeks an order allowing it to serve a Rule 45 subpoena on Cox 

Communications before the parties conduct a Rule 26(f) Conference in this case so that 

Plaintiff may obtain the true name and address of Defendant. (ECF No. 4-1 at 6-7.) For 

the reasons set forth below, Plaintiff’s Motion is GRANTED. 

1. Identification of Missing Party with Sufficient Specificity

For the Court to grant Plaintiff’s Motion, Plaintiff must first identify Defendant with 

enough specificity to enable the Court to determine Defendant is a real person or entity 

who would be subject to the jurisdiction of this Court. See Columbia Ins. Co., 185 F.R.D. 

at 578. This Court has previously determined that “a plaintiff identifies Doe defendants 

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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. 12cv00186 MMA (RBB), 2012 WL 

12884688, at *4 (S.D. Cal. May 8, 2012) (citing Openmind Solutions, Inc. v. Does 1–39, 

No. C-11-3311 MEJ, 2011 WL 4715200, at *5–6 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 7, 2011); Pink Lotus 

Entm’t, LLC v. Does 1–46, No. C-11-02263 HRL, 2011 WL 2470986, at *6–7 (N.D. Cal. 

June 21, 2011)). 

In cases where it is unclear whether the subject IP address is “dynamic” or “static,” 

such as here, it matters when Plaintiff’s geolocation efforts were performed.2In the context 

of dynamic IP addresses, “a person using [a particular IP] address one month may not have 

been the same person using it the next.” State v. Shields, No. CR06352303, 2007 WL 

1828875, at *6 (Conn. Sup. Ct. June 7, 2007). It is likely that the user of IP address 

68.8.146.252 is a residential user and that the IP address assigned by Cox Communications 

is dynamic.3 Thus, if Plaintiff’s geolocation efforts were performed in the temporal 

proximity to the offending downloads, they may be probative of the physical location of 

the subject IP subscriber. If not, the geolocation of the subject IP address may potentially 

be irrelevant. 

Here, the Court concludes that the instant Motion sufficiently demonstrates that 

Defendant is likely subject to the Court’s jurisdiction. Plaintiff attaches to its Complaint a 

table reflecting that the user of IP address 68.8.146.252 engaged in allegedly infringing 

activity from June 6, 2017, through October 16, 2017. (ECF No. 1-2 at 1-3.) In addition,

 

2

“Static IP addresses are addresses which remain set for a specific user. Dynamic IP addresses are 

randomly assigned to internet users and change frequently. Consequently, for dynamic IP addresses, a 

single IP address may be re-assigned to many different computers in a short period of time.” Call of the 

Wild Movie, LLC v. Does, 770 F. Supp. 2d 332, 356 (D.D.C. 2011) (citing London-Sire Records, Inc. v. 

Doe 1, 542 F. Supp. 2d 153, 160 (D. Mass. 2008)). 

3

“Most consumer IP addresses are ‘dynamic’ as opposed to ‘static.’” Call of the Wild Movie, 770 F. 

Supp. 2d at 356.

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Plaintiff attaches to its Motion the declaration of Tobias Fieser, an employee of IPP 

International UG (IPP), a forensic investigation services company. (ECF No. 4-2.) Fieser

declares that IPP connected to an electronic device using IP address 68.8.146.252, which 

was observed distributing multiple pieces of Strike 3 Holding’s motion pictures. (Id. at ¶ 

7.) Fieser also declares that according to its ancillary surveillance program, IPP confirmed 

that IP address 68.8.146.252 is associated with significant and long-term BitTorrent use. 

(Id. at ¶ 12.) 

Plaintiff’s Motion asserts that the IP address 68.8.146.252 belongs to Cox 

Communications and that Plaintiff employed Maxmind’s geolocation technology to locate 

that IP address within the Southern District of California. (ECF No. 4-1 at 7, 11.) 

Plaintiff’s Motion argues that this Court has accepted Maxmind’s geolocation findings for 

the purpose of allowing expedited discovery and that federal law enforcement relies on 

Maxmind for its cyber investigations. (Id. at 12) (citing Criminal Prods., Inc. v. Doe72.192.163.220, No. 16-CV-2589 WQH (JLB), 2016 WL 6822186, at *3 (S.D. Cal. Nov. 

18, 2016)). At the Court’s request, Plaintiff filed a Supplemental Declaration of Emilie 

Kennedy, an employee of Plaintiff, addressing when the device associated with IP address 

68.8.146.252 was tracked to this district. (ECF No. 6.) Kennedy declares that IP address 

68.8.146.252 was automatically inserted into Maxmind’s Geolocation Database on 

September 5, 2017 after Plaintiff first received infringement data from IPP4and Maxmind 

traced the IP address location to San Diego, CA. (ECF No. 6-1 at ¶ 4.) Kennedy also 

declares that as of December 12, 2017, Maxmind’s Geolocation Database continues to 

trace IP address 68.8.146.252 to a location in San Diego, CA. (Id. at ¶ 5.) 

The Court concludes that based on the timing of the IP address tracing efforts

employed by Plaintiff, the documented success of the Maxmind geolocation service, and 

the continued tracing of the IP address to San Diego, CA, Plaintiff has met its evidentiary 

 

4 The Court notes that the table attached to Plaintiff’s complaint references alleged infringement as early 

as June 6, 2017. (ECF No. 1-2 at 1.)

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burden of showing that IP address 68.8.146.252 likely relates to a physical address located 

in this district. 

2. Previous Attempts To Locate Defendant 

For the Court to grant Plaintiff’s Motion, Plaintiff must next identify all of the steps 

it took to locate Defendant to ensure the Court it made a good faith effort to identify and 

serve process on Defendant. See Columbia Ins. Co., 185 F.R.D. at 579. The Court 

concludes that Plaintiff has met this burden. Plaintiff retained a forensic investigation 

services company, IPP, to monitor the BitTorrent file distribution network for the presence 

of Plaintiff’s copyrighted works and to identify the IP addresses of devices that are found 

distributing Plaintiff’s copyrighted works. (ECF No. 4-2 at ¶¶ 4-5.) Through IPP, Plaintiff 

has been able to identify much about the subscriber of IP address 68.8.146.252, such as 

his, her, or its ISP and software used to commit the allegedly infringing acts. (Id. at ¶¶ 7-

10.) Plaintiff also retained a cyber-security firm, 7 River Systems, LLC, which declares,

based on its experience in similar cases, that Defendant’s ISP is the only entity that can 

correlate the IP address to its subscriber and identify Defendant as the person assigned the 

IP address 68.8.146.252 during the time of the alleged infringement. (Id. at ¶ 10.) Based 

on the above, the Court is satisfied that Plaintiff has made a good faith effort to locate 

Defendant and that Plaintiff cannot, on its own, locate Defendant with any greater 

specificity than it already has. Accordingly, the Court finds Plaintiff has sufficiently 

satisfied the second prong of the Ninth Circuit’s “good cause” test. 

3. Whether Plaintiff’s Suit Can Withstand a Motion to Dismiss

For the Court to grant Plaintiff’s Motion, Plaintiff must next show that its suit against 

Defendant could withstand a motion to dismiss. Columbia Ins. Co., 185 F.R.D. at 579 

(citing Gillespie, 629 F.2d at 642). The Court finds Plaintiff has met this burden.

Plaintiff’s Complaint alleges a single cause of action against Defendant: copyright

infringement. (ECF No. 1 at ¶¶ 34-39.) To prove a claim of direct copyright infringement, 

a plaintiff “must show: (1) ownership of a valid copyright; and (2) that the defendant 

violated the copyright owner’s exclusive rights under the Copyright Act.” Ellison v. 

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Robertson, 357 F.3d 1072, 1076 (9th Cir. 2004) (citing 17 U.S.C. § 501(a) (2003)). Here, 

Plaintiff purports to be the owner of the thirty-nine copyrighted works at issue, and asserts

that every work has been registered with the United States Copyright Office or has a 

pending copyright registration application. (ECF No. 1 at ¶¶ 1, 4, 6; ECF No. 4-1 at 15 

(citing Cosmetic Ideas, Inc. v. IAC/Interactivecorp., 606 F.3d 612 (9th Cir. 2010).) In 

addition, Plaintiff alleges that “Defendant used the BitTorrent file network to illegally 

download and distribute Plaintiff’s copyrighted motion pictures.” (Id. at ¶ 23.) IPP

declares that it observed the device using IP address 68.8.146.252 distributing multiple 

pieces of Strike 3 Holding’s motion pictures, and states that the IP address is associated 

with significant and long-term BitTorrent use. (ECF No. 4-2 at ¶¶ 7, 12.) Accordingly, 

the Court finds Plaintiff has alleged the prima facie elements of direct copyright 

infringement and its suit against Defendant would likely withstand a motion to dismiss. 

4. Specific Discovery Request

Finally, for the Court to grant Plaintiff’s Motion, Plaintiff “should file a request for

discovery with the Court.” Columbia Ins. Co., 185 F.R.D. at 580 (citing Gillespie, 629 

F.2d at 642). Although Plaintiff did not provide the Court with a proposed subpoena, 

Plaintiff has provided the Court with sufficient information regarding its requested 

discovery by stating in its Motion that it will seek from Cox Communications only the 

name and address of the subscriber of IP address 68.8.146.252. 

B. Additional Considerations

This Court shares the concern noted by the Honorable Nita L. Stormes in the parallel 

case Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. John Doe, No. 17-cv-2312-MMA-NLS (S.D. Cal. Dec. 7, 

2017) regarding the risk of “‘unscrupulous tactics [being] used by certain plaintiffs, 

especially in the adult film industry, to shake down the owners of IP addresses’ to exact 

quick and quiet settlements from possibly innocent defendants who pay out only to avoid 

potential embarrassment.” (citing Malibu Media, LLC v. Does 1-5, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 

77469, *1 (S.D.N.Y. June 1, 2012)). Accordingly, the Court issues an order establishing

procedural safeguards to protect the privacy and interests of the Defendant. See e.g., 

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Malibu Media v. Doe, 2014 U.S. Dist. Lexis 79595, *5 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 10, 2014) (imposing 

conditions and citing cases that do the same); see also Malibu Media, LLC v. Doe, 2016 

U.S. Dist. LEXIS 35534, *17 (E.D. Cal. Mar. 18, 2016). 

IV. CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, the Court finds good cause exists to allow Plaintiff 

to serve a Rule 45 subpoena upon Cox Communications at this time. Accordingly, 

Plaintiff’s Motion is GRANTED as follows: 

1. Plaintiff may serve on Cox Communications a subpoena, pursuant to and 

compliant with the procedures of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45, seeking only the 

name and address of the subscriber assigned IP address 68.8.146.252 for the relevant time 

period. Plaintiff shall not seek from Cox Communications any other personally identifiable 

information about the subscriber; 

2. Plaintiff’s subpoena to Cox Communications must provide a minimum of 

forty-five (45) calendar days’ notice before any production responsive to the subpoena 

shall be made to Plaintiff;

3. At the time Plaintiff serves its subpoena on Cox Communications, Plaintiff 

shall also serve on Cox Communications a copy of this Order;

4. Within fourteen (14) calendar days after service of the subpoena, Cox 

Communications shall notify the subscriber assigned IP address 68.8.146.252 that his, her, 

or its identity has been subpoenaed by Plaintiff and shall provide the subscriber a copy of 

this Order with the required notice;

5. The subscriber whose identity has been subpoenaed shall have thirty (30)

calendar days from the date of such notice to challenge Cox Communications’ disclosure 

of his, her, or its name and address by filing an appropriate pleading with this Court 

contesting the subpoena;

6. If Cox Communications seeks to modify or quash the subpoena, it shall do so 

as provided by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45(d)(3);

7. In the event a motion to quash, modify, or otherwise challenge the subpoena 

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is brought properly before the Court, Cox Communications shall preserve the information 

sought by the subpoena pending the resolution of any such motion; and

8. Plaintiff may only use the information disclosed in response to a Rule 45 

subpoena served on Cox Communications for the purpose of protecting and enforcing 

Plaintiff’s rights as set forth in its Complaint. If the Defendant wishes to proceed 

anonymously, Plaintiff may not release any identifying information without a court order 

allowing the release of the information.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 15, 2017

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