LOS ANGELES — Strike 3 Holdings, the copyright holder for the Vixen Media Group brands, filed more than 430 new infringement lawsuits in federal court against unidentified downloaders during the month of October.
A report in Law.com’s “Litigation Radar” section described the strategy as “an onslaught.”
“While infringement suits by Strike 3 are fairly routine, last month's volume sticks out at 56% higher than the typical monthly average,” the Law.com report explained. “The company is currently on pace to surpass the 3,000 cases which it filed in 2022.”
Several law firms are representing Strike3 in the suits, including the Atkin Firm, the Beik Law Firm and the James Law Firm, the report added.
A top legal analytics firm released a report in June 2022 confirming that just two adult companies — Strike 3 Media and Malibu Holdings — were responsible for the bulk of all copyright litigation in federal courts between 2018 and 2020.
Strike 3 has for years been the subject of much fascination in the legal world for not backing down from its lawsuit-heavy approach, even after judges rebuked other practitioners of the same strategy. Last year, legal analysis news site Law360 noted that the company’s legal gambit had proven profitable even though “several adverse court rulings have dismantled controversial business models that center on filing a high volume of infringement suits accusing internet users of downloading copyright-protected pornographic movies.”
The Law360 article describes Strike 3's strategy this way: “After targeting anonymous Internet Protocol addresses, the plaintiffs use the suits to file ex parte subpoenas to demand internet service providers turn over information to identify the subscribers attached to the addresses. Armed with that information, the plaintiffs then pursue the defendants, who often pay small amounts to settle because they are too embarrassed to fight the allegations or don't want the expense of hiring an attorney.”