Illinois

September 26, 2018 by Leonard J. French

Strike 3 Holdings Files 68 More BitTorrent Lawsuits

Reddit user /u/beardfearer may fear beards, but not copyright notices Strike 3 Holdings, LLC, has filed 68 more BitTorrent lawsuits against John Doe defendants. On September 24 and 25, Strike 3 Holdings filed 6 cases in the District of Columbia, 6 in Illinois, 4 in Nevada, 20 in New York, 27 in Pennsylvania, and 5 in Texas. It seems despite filing hundreds of lawsuits this year, the Plaintiff shows no sign of slowing.

Strike 3 Holdings owns the Vixen, Tushy, and Blacked brand of adult films and is notorious for mass filing lawsuits against anonymous internet subscribers, referred to as John Does, and identified only by their IP addresses. They allege the John Does downloaded and shared their copyrighted films using BitTorrent networks.

The Plaintiff argues that in order to properly serve the lawsuits on defendants, they must get their identity through the subscribers’ Internet Service Provider (ISP). Courts routinely grant subpoenas to allow the Plaintiff to demand the identity of an internet subscriber from the ISP.

Although these lawsuits are filed regularly, they are serious. It may be tempting for a defendant to hope that the Plaintiff forgets about their case but failure to fight the lawsuit can result in tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages depending on the number of alleged infringements. In civil court, not defending your case can be seen as the same as admitting fault.

September 24, 2018 by Leonard J. French

Malibu Media Continues to File Lawsuits in Illinois, Michigan, and New York

Reddit user /u/beardfearer may fear beards, but not copyright notices Malibu Media continues to file more copyright lawsuits in Illinois (14 cases), Michigan (4 cases), and New York (12 cases). They filed 30 cases on September 21 and 23, meaning they have filed over 100 lawsuits so far in September alone.

Malibu Media owns the X-Art brand of adult films and is notorious for mass filing lawsuits against anonymous internet subscribers, referred to as John Does, and identified only by their IP addresses. They allege the John Does downloaded and shared their copyrighted films using BitTorrent networks.

September 21, 2018 by Leonard J. French

Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media File 90+ Lawsuits Over 3 Days

Reddit user /u/beardfearer may fear beards, but not copyright notices Strike 3 Holdings, joined by Malibu Media, continue to mass file copyright lawsuits against John Doe internet subscribers they allege downloaded their copyrighted material through BitTorrent networks. Over 3 days, Strike 3 Holdings filed 85 lawsuits in California (26 cases), Florida (3 cases), New Jersey (26 cases), and New York (30 cases). Malibu Media filed an additional 6 cases in Illinois (3 cases) and Michigan (3 cases). These case are in addition to 83 similar lawsuits already filed in the first half of September.

Although Malibu Media and Strike 3 Holdings are separate companies that own separate brands (Malibu Media owns the rights to X-Art brand films and Strike 3 Holdings owns rights to Tushy, Vixen, Blacked, and Blacked Raw), the two Plaintiffs are very similar in their approach. They both hire investigators to monitor Bittorrent networks and record the IP addresses of people allegedly downloading their copyrighted material. They then sue the subscriber associated with the IP address. However, in order to properly serve the defendant, they subpoena the identity of the subscriber from the Internet Service Provider.

Although these lawsuits are filed regularly, they are serious for the defendant. The Plaintiffs consider each alleged infringement as worth $1,000s in damages if they win in court.

Illinois

Footer