Liberty Media Holdings, LLC v. Bittorrent Swarm

277 F.R.D. 669 (2011)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Liberty (P) is the registered owner of the copyright to the motion picture, 'Corbin Fisher Amateur College Men Down on the Farm.' P filed a Complaint against John Does 1-20 for copyright infringement. Swarm (Ds) were all users of 'BitTorrent,' a 'peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing and sharing data on the Internet.' BitTorrent decentralizes distribution of a file over the internet net by allowing users to join a 'swarm' of hosts to download and upload from each other simultaneously. The seed uploads the file and then creates a 'torrent' file containing (1) a unique string of alphanumeric characters used to verify the data of the underlying file that is being transferred, and (2) a 'roadmap' to the IP addresses of other users who are sharing the file identified by the unique hash code. 'Peers,' then download the torrent file, which in turn, allows them to identify and download from other peers who possess portions of the file described by the torrent. As each peer downloads, a new piece of the file the peer becomes a source of that piece to other peers. Once a peer has accumulated enough individual pieces of the file, software allows the peer to reassemble the aggregate file. P filed an ex parte motion to engage in Early Discovery for the purpose of identifying John Does 1-20. After that discovery, P filed an Amended Complaint naming five of the John Does and adding John Does 21-30 as Defendants. The court must now determine if the defendants are properly joined.