New York

October 11, 2018 by Leonard J. French

69 More Lawsuits from Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media

Reddit user /u/beardfearer may fear beards, but not copyright notices Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media are continuing to blanket the country in BitTorrent-based file sharing lawsuits, this time in California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. Strike 3 Holdings has been particularly busy, filing 17 cases in California, 7 in Illinois, 16 in Maryland, and 5 in New York. Malibu Media has also filed 9 new cases in Michigan, 5 in New Jersey, and 10 in Pennsylvania.

Both companies file similar lawsuits. They allege that they have hired investigators to monitor BitTorrent traffic and record IP addresses that contribute to the downloading and sharing of the Plaintiffs’ copyrighted films. They then sue the internet subscriber as a John Doe and subpoena the identity of the subscriber from the internet service provider (ISP).

Although downloading through BitTorrent may feel commonplace, the lawsuits against alleged downloaders are serious and represent thousands of dollars in damages per infringement. When multiple infringements are alleged, damages granted by the court can easily escalate into 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars. This makes an early and effective defense against these suits all the more important.

September 28, 2018 by Leonard J. French

Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media Continue to File Record Breaking Number of Cases

Reddit user /u/beardfearer may fear beards, but not copyright notices Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media continue to inundate Federal courts around the country with file-sharing lawsuits against individual, anonymous internet subscribers. In the past few days, Strike 3 Holdings has filed 62 copyright infringement lawsuits in California (29 cases), Colorado (9 cases), Illinois (6 cases), New York (6 cases), Pennsylvania (1 case), and Virginia (11 cases). Malibu Media has also filed 23 additional cases in Michigan (1 case), New Jersey (12 cases), and Texas (8 cases). This has been a record breaking year. So far, Strike 3 Holdings has filed more than 1700 lawsuits this year. Malibu Media is not far behind with more than 1000 cases.

Although different companies, both Strike 3 Holdings and Malibu Media have similar tactics in aggressively pursuing alleged downloaders of their adult films. Strike 3 Holdings owns the Blacked, Tushy, and Vixen brands. Malibu Media owns the X-Art brand. Both Plaintiffs begin by identifying an IP address they claim participated in downloading and sharing their films through Bittorrent networks and then sue the unnamed account holder as a John Doe. As they only have an IP address, they ask the courts to subpoena the defendant’s identity from the Internet Service Provider (ISP) so the defendant can be formally served.

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.

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