Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-00723/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-00723-4/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 820
Nature of Suit: Copyright
Cause of Action: 17:101 Copyright Infringement

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS, LLC,

Plaintiff,

v.

JOHN DOE SUBSCRIBER ASSIGNED IP 

ADDRESS 107.208.9.165,

Defendant.

Case No. 19-cv-00723-JCS 

ORDER DENYING MOTION TO 

QUASH

Re: Dkt. No. 19

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff Strike 3 Holdings, LLC (“Strike 3”) brought this action for copyright infringement 

against Defendant John Doe, whose real name is unknown to Strike 3 and whom Strike 3 has 

identified only by the IP address 107.208.9.165, which Strike 3 alleges was used to illegally 

download and share Strike 3’s copyrighted pornographic videos over the BitTorrent file sharing 

protocol. Strike 3 previously sought leave to serve an early subpoena on AT&T, Inc.—the 

internet service provider (or “ISP”) that Strike 3 believes assigned Doe’s IP address—to determine 

the identity of the subscriber to whom the IP address was assigned, and supported that request 

with evidence that the IP address was assigned by AT&T to a subscriber in Oakland, California 

and was used to share forty-eight copyrighted works owned by Strike 3. The Court granted that 

application, with the caveat that “any name or other personal identifying information of any 

current or proposed defendant shall be filed UNDER SEAL in all filings and not otherwise 

disclosed.” Order Granting Ex Parte Application (dkt. 10) ¶ 9. 

Doe, who has not yet been identified or served, now moves to quash the subpoena served 

on AT&T on the basis that “the right to privacy outweighs [Strike 3’s] ungrounded fishing 

expedition.” Mot. (dkt. 19) at 1. Doe relies on a handful of district court decisions declining to 

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authorize similar subpoenas, as well as a 2011 news article describing a somewhat similar lawsuit 

by a different plaintiff that named forty-six defendants, including an older woman who maintained 

that she had not downloaded the videos at issue. See generally Mot.; Request for Judicial Notice 

(dkt. 19-1) Ex. A. Strike 3 opposes the motion, see Opp’n (dkt. 22) and Doe did not file a reply 

brief. The Court finds the matter suitable for resolution without oral argument and VACATES the 

hearing previously set for July 12, 2019. For the reasons discussed below, Doe’s motion is 

DENIED.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

While “‘the use of “John Doe” to identify a defendant is not favored,’ in circumstances 

‘where the identity of alleged defendants will not be 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.” Soo Park v. Thompson, 851 F.3d 910, 928 n.21 (9th Cir. 2017)

(quoting Gillespie v. Civiletti, 629 F.2d 637, 642–43 (9th Cir. 1980)); see also Glacier Films 

(USA), Inc. v. Turchin, 896 F.3d 1033, 1036 (9th Cir. 2018) (characterizing as “a practical 

solution” the District of Oregon’s case management order “allow[ing] copyright holders to seek 

limited discovery from an Internet Service Provider to establish a potential infringer’s identity”).

Rule 45 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states that a court must quash a subpoena, 

upon timely motion, if it “requires disclosure of privileged or other protected matter” or “subjects 

a person to undue burden.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 45(d)(3)(A)(iii)–(iv). Motions to quash are evaluated 

in the context of Rule 26, which states that “[p]arties may obtain discovery regarding any 

nonprivileged matter that is relevant to any party’s claim or defense and proportional to the needs 

of the case, considering the importance of the issues at stake in the action, the amount in 

controversy, the parties’ relative access to relevant information, the parties’ resources, the 

importance of the discovery in resolving the issues, and whether the burden or expense of the 

proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 26(b)(1).

III. ANALYSIS

As a starting point, Doe’s request for judicial notice of the 2011 article is denied. Even 

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assuming for the sake of argument that the Court could take notice of the article’s existence, 

judicial notice would not be appropriate for the truth of the article’s contents. See, e.g., Lee v. City 

of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 689 (9th Cir. 2001) (holding that although the district court could 

take judicial notice of “the fact that [a document] was signed,” it erred in taking “judicial notice of 

disputed facts stated in public records”); Acasio v. San Mateo County, No. 14-cv-04689-JSC, 2015 

WL 5568345, at *1 n.1 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 22, 2015) (“It is well established that the Court may take 

judicial notice of records from other proceedings not to credit the truth of the allegations or facts 

set forth therein, but rather ‘for purposes of noticing the existence of the [prior] lawsuit, the claims 

made in the lawsuit, and the fact that various documents were filed therein.’” (citation omitted)). 

The 2011 article, which Doe offers for the truth of its reporting, is hearsay not subject to judicial 

notice. Regardless, even if the Court were to consider the article, it is irrelevant, as it describes 

claims by a different plaintiff against different defendants, in a type of mass joinder action not 

permitted by this Court, with no indication that the court there had taken action to protect the 

privacy of potential defendants comparable to the restrictions in this Court’s order granting Strike 

3’s application to serve a subpoena. See generally Hard Drive Productions, Inc. v. Does 1–188, 

809 F. Supp. 2d 1150 (N.D. Cal. 2011) (holding joinder of more than one Doe defendant 

inappropriate in a BitTorrent copyright infringement action), disapproved on other grounds by 

Williams v. King, 875 F.3d 500, 505 (9th Cir. 2017).

This Court also respectfully disagrees with the decisions on which Doe relies, or concludes 

that they rest on premises inapplicable to this case. In denying an application for a subpoena, the 

District Court for the District of Columbia relied heavily on the “defendant’s weighty privacy

expectation” against “having [their] name and reputation publicly—and permanently—connected 

to websites like Tushy and Blacked Raw.” See Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, 351 F. Supp. 3d 

160, 164 (D.D.C. 2018), appeal docketed, No. 18-7188 (D.C. Cir. Dec. 19, 2018). That decision 

has been heavily criticized and rarely followed. See, e.g., Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 

2:18-cv-02637-MCE-CKD, 2019 WL 935390, at *5 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 26, 2019) (citing district court 

decisions declining to follow the D.C. decision). Here, the Court’s order granting Strike 3’s 

application for a subpoena restricts Strike 3’s ability to publicly tie any individual to the videos at 

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issue, by prohibiting Strike 3 from publicizing a subscriber’s name or other identifying 

information obtained as a result of its subpoena.

1

 

The D.C. court also characterized its holding as limited, given that “the typical [copyright 

infringement] case does not involve pornography,” the copyright eligibility of which is “unsettled 

in many circuits.” Id. at 165 & n.5 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In the Ninth 

Circuit, however, pornography’s protection under copyright law has been settled for decades. See 

Jartech, Inc. v. Clancy, 666 F.2d 403, 405–06 (9th Cir. 1982). Doe offers no argument in this case 

why the holder of copyright to pornographic material is less entitled to discovery to identify a 

purported infringer than the owner of any other work would be. See, e.g., Strike 3 Holdings, LLC 

v. Doe, No. 18-CV-2648 (VEC), 2019 WL 78987, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 2, 2019) (stating that 

Strike 3’s “interest[] in protecting its copyrighted material from infringement . . . is not lessened 

by the salacious content of the material”).

The perhaps closer question is whether the subpoena should be quashed based on the 

inherent imprecision of an IP address as a means to identify the individual who purportedly 

infringed Strike 3’s copyrights. In affirming dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6), the Ninth Circuit has 

summarized the limitations of an IP address for such purposes:

Although copyright owners can often trace infringement of 

copyrighted material to an IP address, it is not always easy to pinpoint 

the particular individual or device engaged in the infringement. 

Internet providers, such as Comcast or AT & T, can go so far as to 

identify the individual who is registered to a particular IP address (i.e., 

an account holder) and the physical address associated with the 

account, but that connection does not mean that the internet subscriber 

is also the infringer. The reasons are obvious—simply establishing an 

account does not mean the subscriber is even accessing the internet, 

and multiple devices can access the internet under the same IP 

address. Identifying an infringer becomes even more difficult in 

instances like this one [involving an IP address registered to an adult 

care home], where numerous people live in and visit a facility that 

uses the same internet service. While we recognize this obstacle to 

naming the correct defendant, this complication does not change 

 

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In another decision that Doe cites as expressing concern about the misuse of a defendants’ 

identities in copyright cases involving pornography, the Southern District of New York in fact 

granted the plaintiff’s request for a subpoena, and imposed restrictions on the use of information 

obtained through the subpoena similar to those in place here. See Digital Sin, Inc. v. Does 1–176, 

279 F.R.D. 239, 242 (S.D.N.Y. 2012).

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the plaintiff’s burden to plead factual allegations that create a 

reasonable inference that the defendant is the infringer.

Cobbler Nev., LLC v. Gonzales, 901 F.3d 1142, 1146–47 (9th Cir. 2018); see also, e.g., Patrick 

Collins, Inc. v. Doe 1, 288 F.R.D. 233, 237–39 (E.D.N.Y. 2012) (noting that “even . . . a secured 

network does not reduce the likelihood . . . that the infringing activity was conducted by a guest, 

family member, or neighbor who shares the account owner’s internet connection”).

Although the Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal in Cobbler Nevada, it did not suggest that 

the district court erred in allowing the plaintiff to take early discovery, including not only a 

subpoena served on an ISP, but also a deposition of the subscriber to whom the IP address was 

registered. See id. at 1145. District courts examining that decision have held that although an IP 

address and a subscriber’s name alone may be insufficient to state a claim of infringement, 

Cobbler Nevada does not stand for the proposition that subpoenas may not be used to determine a 

subscriber’s name. See, e.g., Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 2:18-cv-02637-MCE-CKD, 2019 

WL 935390, at *2–3 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 26, 2019); Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 19-cv-00160-

EMC, 2019 WL 591459, at *2 & n.1 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 13, 2019); Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, 

No. 4:18-cv-04993-KAW, 2019 WL 468816, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 6, 2019); Strike 3 Holdings, 

LLC v. Doe, No. 18-CV-2648 (VEC), 2019 WL 78987, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 2, 2019). While it 

may turn out to be the case, as in Cobbler Nevada, that the IP address is insufficient to identify the 

infringer, circumstances might also differ: the subscriber here might live alone and maintain 

exclusive access to the IP address, or might admit to infringing if asked, or might be able to 

identify some other person as the infringer. At this stage, the Court need not resolve the minimum 

connections necessary on a motion to dismiss or at summary judgment to support an inference that 

a particular individual associated with an IP address used that IP address to infringe Strike 3’s 

copyrights, or whether any further pre-service discovery beyond the subpoena might be warranted 

and permissible. The Court holds only that it is not so “clear that discovery would not uncover the 

identit[y]” of the purported infringer that Strike 3’s subpoena should be disallowed as futile. See 

Soo Park, 851 F.3d at 928 n.21.

Doe briefly argues that Strike 3 has failed to provide sufficient identifying information of 

the works purportedly infringed, including “the exact name and title of the copyright work, the 

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registration of the copyright material, including the registration number, with the United States 

Copyright Office.” Mot. at 5. An exhibit to Strike 3’s complaint in fact provides the registration 

number of each work allegedly infringed, which is sufficient for Doe to determine the works’ titles 

using the Copyright Office’s public database. See Compl. (dkt. 1) Ex. A (column labeled “CRO 

Number”); U.S. Copyright Office Public Catalog, https://cocatalog.loc.gov/. Doe also cites a case 

denying leave to serve a subpoena where Strike 3 failed to submit evidence that the IP address at 

issue was assigned to someone located in the relevant judicial district. See Mot. at 4 (citing 

Request for Judicial Notice Ex. C (Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 18cv1355-JLS(KSC), 2019 

U.S. Dist. LEXIS 48381, at *12 (S.D. Cal. Mar. 22, 2019))). In this case, however, Strike 3 has 

submitted such evidence in the form of a declaration by its in-house counsel Emilie Kennedy 

regarding the results of a geolocation search of Doe’s IP address. See Application (dkt. 8) Ex. E 

(Kennedy Decl.).

IV. CONCLUSION

For the reasons discussed above, Doe’s motion to quash the subpoena that Strike 3 served 

on AT&T is DENIED. AT&T shall comply with the subpoena no later than July 23, 2019. The 

restrictions on the use of personal identifying information imposed by the Court’s March 11, 2019

order granting Strike 3’s application to serve the subpoena remain in effect.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: July 9, 2019

______________________________________

JOSEPH C. SPERO

Chief Magistrate Judge

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