Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. JOHN DOE subscriber assigned IP address 100.8.169.70

Summary

The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey grants Strike 3 Holdings, LLC leave to serve Verizon Fios with a subpoena before the Rule 26(f) conference to identify the subscriber associated with IP address 100.8.169.70. The subpoena is limited to the subscriber’s name and address, and the court prohibits requests for telephone numbers, email addresses, or MAC addresses.

Holdings

1. Good cause existed to permit limited expedited discovery before the Rule 26(f) conference because the requested information was necessary to identify the appropriate defendant and effectuate service, and the need for the discovery outweighed the potential prejudice to the responding subscriber.
2. Plaintiff may subpoena Verizon Fios for only the name and address of the subscriber assigned to the relevant IP address; it may not seek the subscriber's telephone number, email address, or MAC address.

Questions Presented

1. Whether Plaintiff had good cause to obtain expedited third-party discovery before the Rule 26(f) conference to identify an unknown copyright-infringement defendant.
2. Whether the subpoena should be limited to information reasonably necessary to identify the subscriber while protecting the privacy of a potentially noninfringing account holder.

Disposition

other