Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_18-cv-00230/USCOURTS-casd-3_18-cv-00230-0/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 70.95.140.98 ,

Defendant. 

Case No.: 18-cv-0230-AJB-MDD

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR 

EARLY DISCOVERY 

[ECF NO. 4]

Before the Court is Plaintiff’s Ex Parte Motion for Leave to Serve a 

Third Party Subpoena Prior to a Rule 26(f) Conference filed on February 13, 

2018. (ECF No. 4). No Defendant has been named or served. For the 

reasons discussed below, Plaintiff’s Motion is DENIED.

I. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On January 31, 2018, Plaintiff filed a Complaint against “John Doe,” 

allegedly a subscriber of Time Warner Cable assigned IP address 

70.95.140.98 (“Defendant”). (ECF No. 1). Plaintiff alleges direct copyright 

infringement against Defendant. Plaintiff asserts that it is the registered 

copyright holder of certain copyrighted works alleged to have been infringed 

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by Defendant. Plaintiff contends Defendant used the BitTorrent file 

distribution network to copy and distribute Plaintiff’s copyrighted works 

through the Internet without Plaintiff’s permission. (Id.) 

Plaintiff seeks leave to conduct early discovery to learn the identity of 

the subscriber of the subject Internet Protocol (“IP”) address from the 

Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) who leased that IP address to its subscriber 

during the relevant period. Specifically, Plaintiff seeks an order permitting it 

to serve a third party subpoena, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 45, on Time 

Warner Cable requiring the ISP to supply the name and address of its 

subscriber to Plaintiff. 

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Formal discovery generally is not permitted 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). “[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) (citing Gillespie v. Civiletti, 629 F.2d 637, 642 (9th 

Cir. 1980)). Requests for early or expedited discovery are granted upon a 

showing by the moving party 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”). 

“The Ninth Circuit has held that when the defendants’ identities are 

unknown at the time the complaint is filed, courts may grant plaintiffs leave 

to take early discovery to determine the defendants’ identities ‘unless it is 

clear that discovery would not uncover the identities, or that the complaint 

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would be dismissed on other grounds.’” 808 Holdings, LLC v. Collective of 

December 29, 2011 Sharing Hash, No. 12-cv-0186 MMA (RBB), 2012 WL 

1648838, *3 (S.D. Cal. May 4, 2012) (quoting Gillespie, 629 F.2d at 642). “A 

district court’s decision to grant discovery to determine jurisdictional facts is 

a matter of discretion.” Columbia Ins., 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 apply a three-factor test when considering motions for 

early discovery to identify Doe defendants. Id. 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. 

III. ANALYSIS

A. Identification of Missing Party with Sufficient Specificity

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. 

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This Court has previously determined that “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, 2012 WL 

1648838, at *4 (emphasis added)(quoting OpenMind Solutions, Inc. v. Does 1-

39, No. C-11-3311 MEJ, 2011 WL 4715200 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 7, 2011); Pink 

Lotus Entm’t, LLC v. Does 1-46, No. C-11-02263 HRL, 2011 WL 2470986 

(N.D. Cal. June 21, 2011)). 

Regarding venue, the Complaint alleges:

9. Plaintiff used IP address geolocation technology by Maxmind Inc. 

(“Maxmind”), an industry-leading provider of IP address intelligence 

and online fraud detection tools, to determine that Defendant’s IP 

address traced to a physical address in this District. Over 5,000 

companies, along with United States federal and state law enforcement, 

use Maxmind’s GeoIP data to locate Internet visitors, perform analytics, 

enforce digital rights, and efficiently route Internet traffic.

(ECF No. 1 ¶9). Attached as Exhibit A to the Complaint is a chart reflecting 

the IP address alleged to be involved in the illegal downloads, the identity of 

the infringed works, the date and time of the downloads and a reference to 

the ISP (Time Warner Cable) and location (San Diego, CA). (ECF No. 1-2). 

In its Memorandum of Points and Authorities filed in support of this 

Motion, Plaintiff again asserts that it employed geolocation technology to 

trace the physical address of the offending IP address within this jurisdiction. 

(ECF No. 4-1 at 11-13).1 Plaintiff supports its Motion with various 

declarations, none of which address geolocation. The Declaration of Tobias 

 

1 The Court will refer to pagination supplied by CM/ECF rather than original pagination 

throughout.

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Feiser, identified as an employee of a company that provides forensic 

investigation services to copyright holders, supports the allegations that the 

allegedly offending IP address was involved in illegal downloads of the 

specified content at the dates and times indicated. (ECF No. 4-3). It says 

nothing, however, regarding the tracing of the offending IP address to a 

particular geographic location. Plaintiff also supplied the Declaration of 

Susan B. Stalzer who states that she conducted a public search tying the 

allegedly offending IP address to Time Warner Cable. (ECF No. 4-4 ¶11). 

She does not, however, provide evidence regarding the geographic location of 

the offending IP address. 

There also is the question, to which Plaintiff provides no answer, 

regarding when the geolocation effort was performed. It is most likely that 

the subscriber is a residential user and the IP address assigned by ISP is 

“dynamic.”2 Consequently, it matters when the geolocation was performed. 

In the context of dynamic IP addresses, “a person using [an IP] address one 

month may not have been the same person using it the next.” State of 

Connecticut v. Shields, No. CR06352303, 2007 WL 1828875 *6 (Conn. Sup. 

Ct. June 7, 2007). If performed in temporal proximity to the offending 

downloads, the geolocation may be probative of the physical location of the 

subscriber. If not, less so, potentially to the point of irrelevance. Plaintiff 

should have provided the information regarding when the geolocation 

 

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, 356-57 (D. D.C. 

2011)(citations omitted). 

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occurred, or that the IP address is static, in support of this motion. 

Allegations are not evidence and are insufficient to Plaintiff’s purpose. 

Plaintiff should have supported its motion with a declaration providing 

information regarding: 1) Geolocating the subject IP within the jurisdiction 

of this Court; and, 2) The timing of the geolocation if the IP address is 

dynamic. The failure of the motion to provide any evidence, in the form of 

declarations, that the subscriber of the subject IP address at the time of the 

alleged unlawful downloads was likely located within the jurisdiction of the 

Court is fatal. See Malibu Media, LLC v. John Doe, No. C-16-01006-WHA, 

2016 WL 3383830 *4 (N.D. Cal. June 20, 2016). Accordingly, the motion 

must be denied. As a consequence of this ruling, the Court will not address 

the remaining factors at this time. 

IV. CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, Plaintiff’s Ex Parte Motion for Early 

Discovery is DENIED. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: February 15, 2018

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