Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. John Doe subscriber assigned IP address 104.187.188.63

I. BACKGROUND

25 Plaintiff is the owner of motion pictures featured on its brand’s subscription-based adult 26 websites. Compl. ¶ 2–3. Plaintiff alleges that Defendant has been stealing these motion pictures 27 Case No.: 5:23-cv-04931-EJD on a grand scale by using BitTorrent to download the motion pictures and distribute them to others. Id. ¶ 4. Plaintiff has allegedly recorded Defendant infringing 53 movies over an extended period. Id. Because Defendant has downloaded the motion pictures anonymously, Plaintiff currently can only identify Defendant by their IP address, 104.187.188.63. Id. ¶ 13. Plaintiff states that Defendant’s name and address can be provided by Defendant’s ISP, AT&T. Id. Plaintiff therefore requests that, pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 26(d), the Court grant it leave to serve a limited, immediate Rule 45 third-party subpoena on AT&T so that Plaintiff may learn Defendant’s identity, further investigate Defendant’s role in the infringement, and effectuate service. II. LEGAL STANDARD A court may authorize early discovery before the Rule 26(f) conference for the parties' and …