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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

BMG MUSIC, et al. : CIVIL ACTION

:

Plaintiffs : NO. 04-650

:

v. :

:

DOES 1-203, :

:

Defendants. :

O R D E R

AND NOW, this day of April, 2004, upon consideration

of Plaintiffs’ Motion for Reconsideration (Doc. 9), it is hereby

ORDERED that said Motion is DENIED in part and GRANTED in part. 

Part 5 of the Court’s Order of March 5, 2004, is VACATED. 

Plaintiffs may, in due course and with all reasonable speed, file

complaints and submit filing fees for those Defendants against

whom they wish to proceed.

This Court has ruled, sua sponte, that two-hundred and

two Defendants in the above-captioned case have been improperly

joined pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 20 and 21. Plaintiffs have

asked that the Court vacate its earlier Order and refrain from

ruling on the issue of joinder until after Plaintiffs are able to

ascertain Defendants’ identities through discovery. Defendants’

identities are believed to be known by Comcast, a third-party

that provides internet access to the Internet Protocol (IP)

address range utilized by the Defendants. Although it would be

convenient and economical (for Plaintiffs) to have this Court

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Even after new complaints are filed, this Court has no mechanism at its

immediate disposal to retain authority over all of the cases during discovery;

under this District’s local rules of civil procedure, the cases against the

individual Defendants will not meet the requirements of relatedness. Loc. R.

Civ. Pro. 40.1.

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preside over Plaintiffs’ expedited discovery request, the Court

simply cannot overcome its finding that the Defendants are not

properly joined parties.1 In light of the Court’s continuing

conviction that joinder is improper, deferring consideration of

the joinder issue is inappropriate despite the fact that it would

reduce costs for Plaintiffs and mitigate the risk of disparate

treatment at the hands of the learned Judges of this District (a

risk, the Court notes, that is present in every case that

involves developing areas of law).

This Court’s Order of March 5, 2004, was entered after

inspection of Plaintiffs’ Complaint revealed that Plaintiffs are

attempting to bring over two-hundred factually distinct actions

in one lawsuit. Each claim involves different property, facts,

and defenses. John Doe 104, for example, is alleged to have

infringed nine works held by five Plaintiffs. John Doe 113 is

alleged to have infringed ten works owned by a different

(sometimes overlapping) group of Plaintiffs, with only one

copyright identical to John Doe 104 (“Guilty Conscience,” by the

popular rap lyricist Eminem). John Doe 199, meanwhile, is

alleged to have infringed seven works, none of them the same as

John Doe 58. Plaintiffs’ Complaint, Exh. A. In other words, in

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addition to the individual acts of infringement encompassing

separate transactions and occurrences, the actual property at

issue is different for each Defendant. Each Defendant will also

likely have a different defense. Comcast subscriber John Doe 1

could be an innocent parent whose internet access was abused by

her minor child, while John Doe 2 might share a computer with a

roommate who infringed Plaintiffs’ works. John Does 3 through

203 could be thieves, just as Plaintiffs believe, inexcusably

pilfering Plaintiffs’ property and depriving them, and their

artists, of the royalties they are rightly owed. Given this

panoply of facts, law, and defenses, the Court does not see any

reason to vacate its March 5, 2004, Order. Wholesale litigation

of these claims is inappropriate, at least with respect to a vast

majority (if not all) of Defendants. Joinder is improper. 

Defendants 2 through 203 shall be severed.

AND IT IS SO ORDERED.

_______________________________

 Clarence C. Newcomer, S.J. 

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