Strike 3 Holdings Copyright Infringement Defense Strategies | Vondran Lawful

Introduction

Strike 3 Holdings (S3”) has submitted 1000’s of copyright infringement lawsuits, and normally manages to settle fairly a few of them. Nevertheless, they do not constantly prevail in their bringing of these actions (normally in a federal court lawsuit). There are occasions they have experienced to dismiss cases.

When a particular person gets the so-known as “love letter” from their ISP notifying them that their I.P. tackle was utilized to download and share their videos with out permission, and location a deadline for the subscriber to raise any objections or to look for to quash the subpoena, (not frequently an effective technique for federal court circumstances), it can grow to be quite demanding to have an understanding of what happened, what your legal rights are, and to take into account if there are any defenses to copyright infringement or other mitigating factors. This weblog contains some significant issues to note.

Are there defenses to allegations of illegal file sharing copyrighted flicks?

There are quite a few cases where by increasing the proper protection towards Strike 3 Holdings can aid you keep away from having to pay their massive settlement needs (which can be as substantial as $50,000). Listed here are a number of objects to feel of for anybody caught in their IP enforcement web. This firm files HUNDREDS on HUNDREDS of lawsuits each yr and will very likely strike the 10,000 circumstance filings mark future calendar year.

Case assessment – Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. John Doe (73.225.38.130) – I am not the downloader.

In Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. John Doe (73.225.38.130) in the U.S. District Court docket for the Western District of Washington is a scenario regarding copyright infringement. Strike 3 Holdings sued “John Doe” for downloading and sharing their films devoid of permission. The court granted Strike 3 Holdings’ movement for expedited discovery and allowed them to subpoena the Doe’s internet company provider (ISP) to discover his id. The court also denied Doe’s motion to quash the subpoena, discovering that Doe unsuccessful to show how the requested information and facts was overly wide, unduly burdensome, or harassing. This is how just about every BitTorrent case typically starts off.

Having said that, in this scenario, the Defendant denied any file sharing of their digital content and disputed their promises and submitted a counterclaim for declaratory judgment for non-infringement of copyright.

As the circumstance progressed, Strike 3 made the decision to dismiss their scenario (seemingly noticing they experienced the erroneous individual). The court docket agreed to their dismissal ask for, but also mentioned that Defendants counterclaim was NOT DISMISSED and was even now active.

The counterclaim was for declaratory judgment of non-infringement. Thereafter, the court docket ruled for the Defendant on their declare, and ordered Plaintiff to pay back their attorney expenses. In a copyright motion, the attorney-charge clause is a two-way road. Whoever prevails in the litigation can search for their fair attorney fees. Strike 3 appealed but the decision was affirmed on charm.

So, I did not do it is the ideal defense, but as observed, they might power you into litigation and force you to incur fees to prove your innocence. Not everyone would like to go to court docket nevertheless and most cases will settle without having continuing to discovery.

As noticed by the Honorable Royce C. Lamberth, the process of figuring out copyright infringers by IP tackle is “famously flawed” for a wide range of explanations, together with:

• IP deal with spoofing
• the existence of unsecured routers
• the capability of malware to crack passwords or open up backdoors
• the sharing of IP addresses amid relatives customers, roommates, friends, neighbors, and many others
• and the random assignment of IP addresses to a general area if a far more particular one particular simply cannot be determined by geolocation companies. See Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, 351 F. Supp. 3d 160, 162 (D.D.C. 2018)
• What’s more, dynamic IP addresses might be reassigned to a lot of different people through a brief timeframe, and these regular alterations create a sizeable probability of misidentification. See Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, 2019 WL 5446239 at *11 (D.N.J. Oct. 24, 2019).

These are some other issues that really should be reviewed in each case.

Other prospective defenses to critique in file-sharing litigation:

• Statute of constraints (typically 3 yrs from the date of discovery)
• Flicks that did not download
• Deminimis downloads (so modest as to be unrecognizable)
• Truthful use may well also be really worth searching at
• Your children buddies did the downloads
• You can establish you have been out of town throughout the downloads
• Tough Strike 3’s alleged proof with a Cobbler Nevada problem, forcing them to demonstrate “further evidence” showing that the online subscriber to the account (ex. Comcast, Cox, Verizon, AT&T and many others) is also plausible to be the downloader.
• Problem to the geolocation technological know-how (see under)

Strike 3 has raised concerns to various courts throughout the place

Courts all over the country have expressed rising problems that, provided the character of the movies at difficulty, defendants might sense coerced to settle these suits basically to stop public disclosure of their identifying data, even if they believe they have been misidentified. See, e.g., Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 2:18-cv-00824-CB, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 130803, 2018 WL 3688415, at *1 n.2 (W.D. Pa. Aug. 3, 2018).

(“Of certain concern is the likelihood that the names and addresses that the assistance companies will connect to the IP addresses identified in the criticism might not be people of the folks who truly downloaded the film.”) Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 18-cv-2648-VEC, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 587, 2019 WL 78987, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 2, 2019) (“As various district courts in this Circuit have pointed out, copyright holders such as Plaintiff are repeat litigants who have, in the earlier, engaged in ‘abusive litigation practices,’ including coercive settlement practices.”) Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 1:18-cv-2205-RC-GMH, 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 182800, 2018 WL 5297816, at *2 (D.D.C. Oct. 25, 2018).

(“[T]here is a true risk that a defendant may possibly be falsely recognized and compelled to defend by themselves towards unwarranted allegations or that an harmless defendant may be coerced into an unjust settlement with the plaintiff to stop the dissemination of publicity surrounding unfounded allegations.”)
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 3:21-cv-993 (MPS), 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 196955, at *2-3 (D. Conn. Oct. 13, 2021) – Geolocation technological know-how problems?

At least a single district court docket lately concluded that the “geolocation technology” that Strike 3 takes advantage of to recognize alleged infringers’ IP addresses, (See Compl., ECF No. 1 ¶ 9), is also imprecise to identify the distinct individual who downloaded or dispersed the articles in concern. See Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, 351 F. Supp. 3d 160, 162 (D.D.C. 2018) (“This [geolocation] process is famously flawed:

• virtual private networks and onion routing spoof IP addresses (for great and unwell)
• routers and other products are unsecured
• malware cracks passwords and opens backdoors
• various people today (family members, roommates, visitors, neighbors, and so on.) share the identical IP address
• a geolocation service could randomly assign addresses to some common site if it cannot a lot more exclusively recognize a further

See Strike 3 Holdings, LLC v. Doe, No. 3:21-cv-993 (MPS), 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 196955, at *3-4 (D. Conn. Oct. 13, 2021). These are nevertheless additional defenses to look at in defending the accused downloader.

Conclusion

This weblog scratches the surface on authorized ideas that may perhaps be critical in defending Strike 3 Holdings, LLC copyright infringement claims. Our firm has taken care of hundreds of these cases and saved our customers hundreds of thousands of dollars in settlements around the a long time. Strike 3 employes a team of regional copyright lawyers who convey these federal courtroom circumstances in states these as California, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Florida and other states.