Riding Films Inc. v. Does 1-24
Filing
4
ORDER denying 3 Motion for Discovery. Signed by Magistrate Judge G. R. Smith on 4/15/13. (wwp)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
SAVANNAH DIVISION
RIDING FILMS, INC.,
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Plaintiff,
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V.
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DOES 1-24,
Case No. CV413-020
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Defendants.
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Plaintiff seeks permission to issue Fed. R. Civ. P. 45 subpoenas
upon local internet service providers in order to obtain the names,
addresses, and other identifying information of each Doe defendant
alleged to have pirated its copyrighted work in a single BitTorrent
"swarm." (Doc. 3-1.) As in a related case before the undersigned,
Voltage Pictures, LLC v. Doe, No. CV413-037, doe. 7, 2013 WL 1339724
(S.D. Ga. Apr. 1, 2013), this "swarm" lasted for several months (from
November 2012 through January 2013 (doe. 3-2 at 9)). In Voltage, the
Court preliminarily denied pretrial discovery because it was unclear
whether all of the Doe defendants were actually part of the same
"swarm" or, rather, were parties to several separate transactions or
occurrences. Id. doc. 7 at 6-7, 10-11. As there was a strong possibility
that the defendants were misjoined, the Court expressed concern that
the plaintiff intended to use the information gained through discovery to
shake down innocent Does who did not meet the temporality
requirement in such cases, or whose internet connections were used
improperly by others, but who might be intimidated into paying
"nuisance-avoidance" settlements. Id. at 8.
While the Court is mindful of plaintiff's contention that ISP data is
routinely purged and time is thus of the essence, it cannot overlook the
vast number of these lawsuits and their potential for abuse. Moreover,
as counsel is well aware, there is a real concern that allowing discovery at
this time might lead to filing fee losses to the public, assuming
misjoinder. See, e.g., Zambezia Film (Pty) Ltd. v. Does 1-33, 2013 WL
1181587 at * 1 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 20, 2013) (citing its misjoinder ruling in
prior case involving the "inappropriate packaging of defendants, an
approach that sought to proceed through payment of a single $350 filing
fee, while separate suits against the 300 claimed infringers for their
discrete infringements would have escalated that cost to $105,000.").
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Consequently, for the same reasons explained in Voltage, the Court
DENIES plaintiffs motion for discovery until it has submitted
additional briefing supporting its assertion that every defendant Doe was
in fact part of the same swarm and is thus appropriately named as a
defendant in this case.
SO ORDERED this
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15'—
of April, 2013.
UNITED StCTES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF GEORGIA
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