Puzzling privacy analysis in decision to unmask anonymous accused copyright infringers

Plaintiff porn company sued an unknown bittorrent user (identified as John Doe) alleging that defendant had downloaded and distributed more than 20 of plaintiff’s films. Plaintiff asked the court for leave to serve a subpoena on Optimum Online – the ISP associated with defendant’s IP address – prior to the Rule 26(f) conference. (As we have recently discussed , leave of court is required to start discovery before the Rule 26(f) conference, but a plaintiff cannot have that conference unless it knows who the defendant is.) Plaintiff already knew defendant’s IP address.

Source: Puzzling privacy analysis in decision to unmask anonymous accused copyright infringers