Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_19-cv-02452/USCOURTS-casd-3_19-cv-02452-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 820
Nature of Suit: Copyright
Cause of Action: 28:1338cp Copyright Infringement

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS, LLC, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

JOHN DOE subscriber assigned IP 

address 70.95.76.252, 

Defendant. 

 Case No.: 19cv2452-JAH-LL 

ORDER GRANTING EX PARTE 

APPLICATION TO EXPEDITE 

DISCOVERY 

[ECF No. 4] 

Currently before the Court is Plaintiff’s January 17, 2020 “Ex Parte Application for 

Leave to Serve a Third Party Subpoena Prior to a Rule 26(f) Conference.” ECF No. 4 

(“Mot.”). Because the Defendant has not been identified, no opposition or reply briefs have 

been filed. Having reviewed Plaintiff’s motion and all supporting documents, the Court 

GRANTS the motion for the reasons set forth below. 

BACKGROUND 

Plaintiff alleges that it “is the owner of original, award winning motion pictures 

featured on its brand’s subscription-based adult websites.” Mot. at 6. On December 19, 

2019, Plaintiff filed a complaint against John Doe, a subscriber assigned IP address 

70.95.76.252, alleging copyright infringement. ECF No. 1 (“Compl.”). Plaintiff alleges that 

Defendant has infringed Plaintiff’s content by downloading and distributing sixty-five of 

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Plaintiff’s copyrighted works using the BitTorrent file distribution network “over an 

extended period of time.” Id. at ¶ 4. 

Plaintiff alleges it uses its “proprietary forensic software”—VXN Scan (“VXN”)— 

to monitor and detect the infringement of its copyrighted works. Mot. at 6. In this case, 

Plaintiff asserts VXN detected that Defendant’s IP address was “illegally distributing a 

large number of [Plaintiff]’s motion pictures.” Id. Notably, Plaintiff alleges that while the 

“BitTorrent protocol contains some default and automatic functions, none of these 

operations can take place without human interaction.” Id. 

Plaintiff argues Defendant’s IP address is assigned “by his or her Internet Service 

Provider (‘ISP’)” and that the ISP is the “only party with the information necessary to 

identify Defendant by correlating the IP address with John Doe’s identity.” Id. Plaintiff 

further argues Defendant’s ISP only maintains “the internal logs of the requested 

information for a brief period of time.” Id. 

Plaintiff therefore seeks an order from the Court permitting it to serve a subpoena, 

pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45, on Defendant’s ISP, Spectrum, requiring 

Spectrum to supply the true name and address of its subscriber to Plaintiff. Id. at 7. 

LEGAL STANDARD

As a general rule, a party may not seek discovery from any source before the Rule 

26(f) conference unless that party first obtains a stipulation or court order permitting early 

discovery. Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(d)(1). In certain cases, courts have permitted “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). 

Generally, courts in the Ninth Circuit apply the “good cause” standard in deciding 

whether to permit early discovery. Semitool, Inc. v. Tokyo Electron America, Inc., 208 

F.R.D. 273, 276 (N.D. Cal. 2002). Good cause exists “where the need for expedited 

discovery, in consideration of the administration of justice, outweighs the prejudice to the 

responding party.” Id. 

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

good cause exists to allow for expedited discovery to identify certain defendants. 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 the defendant is a real person 

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

“all previous steps taken to locate the elusive defendant.” Id. at 579. Third, the plaintiff 

should establish that its lawsuit “could withstand a motion to dismiss.” Id. 

DISCUSSION 

A. Identification of Missing Party with Sufficient Specificity

Plaintiff has the burden to identify Doe Defendant with sufficient specificity to 

establish Defendant is a real person or entity subject to the Court’s jurisdiction. Columbia 

Ins. Co., 185 F.R.D. at 578. 

Some district courts in the Ninth Circuit have 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, LLC v. Collective of Dec. 29, 2011 Sharing Hash 

E37917C8EEB4585E6421358FF32F29C D63C23C91, No. 12cv00186 MMA-RBB, 2012 

U.S. Dist. LEXIS 62980, at *10-11 (S.D. Cal. May 8, 2012) (citations omitted). Other 

courts have found “merely identifying the IP addresses assigned to the defendants on the 

day of the purported infringement is sufficient.” Id. (citations omitted). 

Here, Plaintiff has met its burden of identifying the Doe Defendant with sufficient 

specificity. Plaintiff provides a declaration from David Williamson, an information 

systems and management consultant currently employed as Plaintiff’s Chief Technology 

Officer. Mot., Ex. A at ¶¶ 11-12. Mr. Williamson states he “oversaw the design, 

development, and overall creation” of VXN, which Plaintiff owns and uses to “identify the 

IP addresses used by individuals infringing Plaintiff’s movies via the BitTorrent protocol.” 

Id. at ¶ 40. 

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As Mr. Williamson explains, the VXN system is comprised of a number of 

components. First, the “Torrent Collector” conducts lexical searches of Plaintiff’s titles 

“within well-known torrent websites.” Id. at ¶ 45. Once the Torrent Collector finds a match, 

“the Downloader” component downloads the .torrent file and correlating target file “so that 

[Plaintiff] can confirm that the targeted computer file . . . is in fact an infringing copy of a 

copyrighted work” that Plaintiff owns. Id. at ¶¶ 47-48. 

Next, the “Proprietary Client” will “connect to peers within the swarm associated 

with that infringing computer file,” which “begins the process of downloading a piece or 

multiple pieces of the infringing computer file from [] computers connected to the Internet 

. . . which are offering those infringing computer files for download.” Id. at ¶ 54. 

Concurrently, the “PCAP Recorder” records in real-time the PCAP (“Packet 

Capture”) files for all BitTorrent transactions that the Proprietary Client is involved in. Id. 

at ¶ 63. According to Mr. Williamson, a “PCAP” file is a “computer file containing 

captured or recorded data transmitted between network devices.” Id. at ¶ 58. Specifically, 

the PCAP contains: (1) evidence of “particular IP addresses” connecting to and sending 

pieces of a computer file to the Proprietary Client; and (2) an “Info Hash” associated with 

an infringing computer file. Id. at ¶¶ 61-62. 

A “PCAP Stamper” then sends an index of every recorded PCAP file to a third-party 

provider. Id. at ¶ 72. The third-party provider signs the index with a qualified timestamp. 

Id. A “PCAP Analyzer” then: (1) retrieves the stored PCAP files; (2) “extracts infringing 

transaction data” from the PCAP file; (3) “verifies that each retrieved data piece is a part 

of a .torrent related file”; and (4) “organizes and summarizes the infringing transaction data 

in a tabular format.” Id. at ¶ 74. 

Plaintiff further provides the declaration of Patrick Paige, a Partner at Computer 

Forensics, LLC, who was retained by Plaintiff to analyze the evidence captured by VXN. 

Mot., Ex. B at ¶¶ 3, 12. Mr. Paige states he received a PCAP relating to a transaction 

occurring on November 13, 2019. Id. at ¶ 16. Mr. Paige further attests that in reviewing the 

PCAP, he “was able to confirm that the PCAP is evidence of a recorded transaction with 

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70.95.76.252” uploading a file with a hash value that allegedly correlates with one of 

Plaintiff’s copyrighted works. Id. at ¶¶ 18-19. 

Plaintiff has also sufficiently shown that Defendant is likely subject to this Court’s 

jurisdiction. In his Declaration, Mr. Williamson states VXN is connected to the “Maxmind 

GeoIP2 Precision Services geolocation database” and connects with this database “to 

determine both the Internet Service Address that assigned a particular IP address as well as 

the city and state the IP Address traces to.” Mot., Ex A at ¶¶ 76, 78. Plaintiff notes this 

Court “has accepted Maxmind’s findings for the purpose of allowing expedited discovery” 

and “federal law enforcement relies on Maxmind for its cyber investigations.” Mot. at 12. 

In addition, Plaintiff provides a declaration from Emilie Kennedy, Plaintiff’s 

General Counsel. Mot., Ex. D at ¶ 3. Ms. Kennedy states that once VXN identified IP 

address 70.95.76.252 as allegedly infringing Plaintiff’s works, the IP address was input 

into Maxmind’s database on February 4, 2018. Id. at ¶ 4. Ms. Kennedy explains that 

Maxmind showed the IP address traced to a location in Del Mar, California. Id. at ¶ 5. Ms. 

Kennedy states the IP address was traced again prior to Plaintiff filing its Complaint and 

then again before Ms. Kennedy filed her declaration—and the IP address continued to be 

traced to a location within this District. Id. at ¶¶ 6-8. 

Finally, Plaintiff provided factual support to show Defendant’s IP address belongs 

to Spectrum. Specifically, Plaintiff includes a declaration from Susan B. Stalzer, one of 

Plaintiff’s employees, who states she used the “American Registry for Internet Numbers 

(“ARIN”) to confirm Spectrum owned Defendant’s IP address at the time of the alleged 

infringement, and hence has the relevant information to identify Doe Defendant.” Mot., 

Ex. D at ¶¶ 3, 11. 

 For the above reasons, the Court finds Plaintiff has sufficiently met its evidentiary 

burden. 

/// 

/// 

/// 

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B. Previous Attempts to Locate Defendant

To obtain leave to take early discovery, Plaintiff must also describe all previous 

attempts it made to identify the Defendant to locate and serve process. See Columbia Ins. 

Co., 185 F.R.D. at 579. 

Here, Plaintiff states it: (1) “diligently attempted to correlate Defendant’s IP address 

to Defendant by searching for Defendant’s IP address” on various internet search tools; (2) 

“conducted its own diligent research on its ability to identify Defendant by other means,” 

which included reviewing “legislative reports, agency websites, informational technology 

guides, governing case law, etc.;” and (3) further “discussed the issue at length with 

computer investigators and cyber security consultants.” Mot. at 13-14. 

Despite these efforts, Plaintiff states it “has been unable to identify any other way” 

to obtain Defendant’s identity except via a subpoena because Defendant’s ISP is “the only 

party with the information necessary to identify Defendant.” Id. at 1, 8. As additional 

support, Plaintiff’s forensic expert Mr. Paige states that based on his experience in similar 

cases, Defendant’s ISP Spectrum “is the only entity that can correlate the IP address to its 

subscriber and identify Defendant[.]” Mot., Ex. B at ¶ 22. 

For these reasons, the Court finds Plaintiff appears to have made a good faith effort 

to locate Defendant. 

C. Whether Plaintiff Can Withstand a Motion to Dismiss 

Plaintiff must finally show that its suit could withstand a motion to dismiss. See 

Columbia Ins. Co., 185 F.R.D. at 579. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b), a case 

can be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction or for failure to state a claim upon 

which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1), 12(b)(6). 

Plaintiff’s Complaint alleges an action for direct copyright infringement. See Compl. 

at Count 1. As applied herein, the Complaint correctly alleges subject matter jurisdiction 

pursuant to Title 28, United Code, Section 1331 (federal question) and 1338 (copyrights). 

Id. at ¶ 8. 

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In order to state a viable claim for copyright infringement, Plaintiff must establish: 

“(1) ownership of a valid copyright; and (2) that the defendant violated the copyright 

owner’s exclusive rights under the Copyright Act.” Ellison v. Robertson, 357 F.3d 1072, 

1076 (9th Cir. 2004) (citations omitted). 

Here, Plaintiff’s Complaint alleges that Plaintiff is the exclusive rights holder of the 

copyrighted works at issue. Compl. at ¶¶ 34-35, Ex. A. Plaintiff’s Complaint further alleges 

Defendant infringed Plaintiff’s copyrighted works using the BitTorrent file distribution 

network to “illegally download and distribute Plaintiff’s copyrighted motion 

pictures[,]”and that “[a]t no point in time did Plaintiff authorize, permit or consent” to 

Defendant’s actions. See Compl. at ¶¶ 25, 40. Ex. A. For these reasons, Plaintiff has 

sufficiently alleged the prima facie elements of direct copyright infringement and could 

likely withstand a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. 

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b), a case can also be dismissed for lack 

of personal jurisdiction or improper venue. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(2), 12(b)(3). To avoid a 

defendant’s motion to dismiss under Federal Rule 12(b)(2) for lack of personal jurisdiction, 

a plaintiff only needs to make a prima facie showing of jurisdiction by presenting facts 

that, if true, would support a finding of personal jurisdiction over the defendant. Ballard v. 

Savage, 65 F.3d 1495, 1498 (9th Cir. 1995). In copyright infringement actions, venue is 

proper “in the district in which the defendant . . . resides or may be found.” 28 U.S.C. § 

1400(a). 

Here, Plaintiff alleges this Court has jurisdiction over Defendant because the alleged 

acts of infringement were traced to an IP address located in this District. Compl. at ¶ 9. 

Plaintiff alleges venue is proper in this District because the alleged acts of infringement 

occurred in this District and the Defendant resides or may be found here. Id. at ¶ 12. 

Specifically, Plaintiff alleges it used Maxmind, a geolocation technology, to determine that 

Defendant’s IP address traced to physical locations within this District. Id. at ¶ 10. Based 

on the foregoing, Plaintiff has alleged facts that are likely to withstand a motion to dismiss 

for lack or personal jurisdiction or improper venue. 

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Finally, the Court must consider the requirements of the Cable Privacy Act, 47 

U.S.C. § 551. The Act generally prohibits cable operators from disclosing personally 

identifiable information regarding subscribers without the prior written or electronic 

consent of the subscriber. 47 U.S.C. § 551(c)(1). A cable operator, however, may disclose 

such information if the disclosure is made pursuant to a court order, and the cable operator 

provides the subscriber with notice of the order. 47 U.S.C. § 551(c)(2)(B). Therefore, the 

information Plaintiff seeks falls within an exception to the prohibition on disclosure within 

the Act. 

IV. CONCLUSION

 Having found good cause, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff’s Motion for Expedited 

Discovery. For the foregoing reasons, it is hereby ORDERED that: 

 1. Plaintiff may serve a subpoena pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

45 on Spectrum that seeks only the true name and address of the subscriber assigned IP 

address 70.95.76.252. Plaintiff shall not subpoena additional information; 

 2. Plaintiff may only use the disclosed information for the purpose of protecting 

its rights in pursuing this litigation; 

 3. Within fourteen calendar days after service of the subpoena, Spectrum shall 

notify the subscriber that his or her identify has been subpoenaed by Plaintiff. The 

subscriber whose identity has been subpoenaed shall have thirty calendar days from the 

date of such notice to challenge the disclosure by filing an appropriate pleading with this 

Court contesting the subpoena; 

 4. If Spectrum 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 fortyfive days from service to production. If a motion to quash or other customer challenge is 

brought, Spectrum shall preserve the information sought by Plaintiff in the subpoena 

pending resolution of such motion or challenge; and 

 5. Plaintiff shall serve a copy of this Order with any subpoena obtained and 

served pursuant to this Order to Spectrum. Spectrum, in turn, must provide a copy of this 

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Order along with the required notice to the subscriber whose identity is sought pursuant to 

this Order. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: February 19, 2020 

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