Piracy cannot be stopped, but Strike 3 Holdings Lawsuits will continue forever. WHY? Because Strike 3 Holdings Lawsuits are based on monitoring the internet activities of downloaders, and they are simply too profitable for Strike 3 Holdings LLC to ever end them.
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INTRODUCTION – WHY THESE STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS LAWSUITS WILL NEVER END.
I used to wonder whether copyright infringement lawsuits like the thousands of Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits filed each year (or the hundreds each month) would ever stop. As the owner of the Cashman Law Firm PLLC, and as an activist, I still do not believe that copyright holders should use the federal courts to extort a $10,000+ settlement for the download of a few copyrighted videos.
I have, however, come to understand that piracy will never end, and the copyright trolls (those copyright holders who choose to sue accused downloaders) will never stop suing.
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Below are reasons why I do not think the Strike 3 Holdings Lawsuit Settlement Scheme will ever end:
REASON #1: To sue and obtain a settlement is much cheaper than to spend that same money to obtain customers on their subscription-based adult film websites.
Let’s start with a bit of sarcasm. It is probably too much to ask them to return to the traditional business model of selling $100/year subscriptions to their adult film websites… not when they could make $10,000+ in settlement per person they sue.
Quick Logic — if you understand this, you’ll understand why they keep suing people.
Strike 3 Holdings, LLC can either spend their money trying to get customers on their adult film websites, or they can spend that same money suing ISP account holders who might have downloaded their copyrighted videos illegally using bittorrent in return for a windfall settlement payment.
- $100/year subscription for one person;
- $10,000+ Strike 3 Settlement Amount for one lawsuit…
- CONCLUSION: $10,000/lawsuit vs. $100/year subscription is the equivalent of them selling 100 SUBSCRIBERS PURCHASING ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR ONE YEAR. How much would it cost them in advertising dollars to gain 100 subscribers? Or, they could pay $400 and file one Strike 3 Holdings lawsuit against ONE ISP account holder in return for one rewarding settlement payment.
As you can clearly see, it is cheaper to just sue downloaders rather than to try to make a profit the traditional way (trying to sell their subscription-based adult film services).
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REASON #2: The settlement money they receive is a VERY PROFITABLE return for their “investment” (the filing fee they pay to file each lawsuit).
You must understand that it is simply TOO PROFITABLE for someone like Strike 3 Holdings LLC to file a lawsuit against an accused “John Doe Subscriber assigned IP address” as Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits often do. Why? Because the cost to file a lawsuit in a federal court is cheap compared to the rewards the copyright holders will get in return for filing that lawsuit.
[PERHAPS LINK HERE TO A SHORT ARTICLE ON STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS LAWSUITS & SETTLEMENT AMOUNTS.
IN THAT ARTICLE, LINK TO THE MORE IN-DEPTH ARTICLES]
Strike 3 Holdings LLC, a copyright holder of adult-film brand names only pays a filing fee of ~$400 per lawsuit to sue an IP address or an ISP account subscriber in federal court.
In return for their “investment” of paying the filing fee for each lawsuit, they can potentially make a return on their investment of $10,000+ per lawsuit.
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SIDE ARTICLE: STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS MIAMI-DADE COUNTY-COURT FILINGS PROVIDE STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS LAWSUITS A CHEAPER ALTERNATIVE TO FILING IN FEDERAL COURTS.
NOTE: There are even CHEAPER ways to sue an accused defendant (in State and County Courts). Although improper, Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits still make use of these improper venues because nobody stops them from doing so.
Why would Strike 3 Holdings file lawsuits in the Miami-Dade County Court (a STATE court, and not a FEDERAL court where copyright infringement lawsuits belong)?
Strike 3 Holdings Miami-Dade County Court Lawsuits are cheaper to file than federal court lawsuits.
STATE FILING FEES TO FILE A LAWSUIT (cheap) vs. FEDERAL COURT FILING FEES TO FILE A LAWSUIT (less cheap).
- A Federal Court copyright infringement civil lawsuit costs ~$400/lawsuit to sue ONE DEFENDANT.
- A state or county-based “Bill of Discovery” lawsuit costs around the same amount of money (~$350/lawsuit), BUT STATE-BASED LAWSUITS ARE CHEAPER because companies like Strike 3 Holdings could sue HUNDREDS of defendants IN ONE LAWSUIT FILING instead of suing ONE “John Doe Subscriber Assigned IP Address XYZ” defendant in ONE $400 federal court lawsuit.
As you can see, the filing fees to sue a defendant are cheap — whether Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits are filed in federal court, or obscenely moreso, whether they file the lawsuit in a state or county court under some obscure state law.
For that $400 filing fee in federal court, (or for that $350 filing fee in a state court), Strike 3 Holdings LLC hopes to achieve a return of TENS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS in settlement money to Strike 3 Holdings LLC in return for that small $350-$400 filing fee.
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REASON #3: Strike 3 Holdings LLC odds of success are high because they sue downloaders who likely downloaded their copyrighted titles.
I am saying this again — STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS ODDS OF SUCCESS ARE HIGH BECAUSE BECAUSE THEY SUE DOWNLOADERS WHO LIKELY DOWNLOADED THEIR COPYRIGHTED TITLES.
Strike 3 Holdings Lawsuits are not filed until they have accumulated enough “damages” to ask for a large settlement which is multiplied by how many titles they believe you downloaded.
I originally went into too much depth discussing this topic. If you are interested in the topic, please click here to read what I wrote about Strike 3 Holdings’ EXHIBIT A spreadsheets.
REASON #4: Because most Strike 3 Holdings Lawsuits settle out of court (and those that do not settle do not go to trial).
It would be a terrible hinderance to the Strike 3 Holdings lawsuit strategy if each and every accused defendant proceeded with litigation and eventually trial, even if they did the downloading of Strike 3 Holdings’ copyrighted videos.
Why? Strike 3 Holdings Lawsuits really are an out-of-court settlement scheme. They have a limited number of attorneys compared to the hundreds of lawsuits that are filed every single month.
Strike 3 Holdings LLC simply do not have the resources to push each and every defendant through the federal court system, from pre-trial hearings to discovery, to summary judgement motions, to trial and onward.
If every defendant fought his case — guilty or not — Strike 3 Holdings Lawsuits would end tomorrow.
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However, let’s be real. Think of the prisoner’s dilemma. Nobody wants to be the one person who takes their case to trial. These lawsuits are REAL copyright infringement lawsuits filed with the full force and enforcement of the federal courts.
A $150,000 judgement will destroy anyone’s financial future, and this is enough of a deterrent to prevent each and every person from proceeding with litigation.
Even if a small handful of you retain me to litigate your cases — even if you did the downloads — it’s terrible for me to say this, but for the same price you would have paid me to take you through the pre-trial stages of litigating this case, you probably could have settled the claims against you for less money.
This is why I personally find these cases as evil (in a morally “good vs. evil” kind of way). The little guy has no choice except to resolve the claims out of court [if he did the downloads], or he is at the mercy of the plaintiff attorneys who will decide how far into the lawsuit they want to push him without him being able to fight back (or to pay an attorney to represent him to fight back).
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What if I did not download the Strike 3 Holdings videos?
This is only if the accused defendant actually did the downloads. If he did not do the downloads, then the process of being found not guilty in these lawsuits is VERY EASY (and I could explain them to you).
Simply put, it is not your job to prove that you DID NOT download a particular video. It is THEIR JOB to prove that you did. The Strike 3 Holdings Lawsuits do this with your testimony at the deposition under oath (e.g., “sitting in front of a court reporter and answering their questions.”)
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Enlisting the help of politicians and federal judges.
In sum, until some politician gets involved and stops these bittorrent-based copyright infringement lawsuits (or, call them “piracy” lawsuits or whatever), these lawsuits will continue because it is too profitable for the copyright holder to file these lawsuit and solicit settlements in return for not proceeding with litigation and eventually trial.
We have been successful over the years in changing the minds of federal judges one at a time — see our “policy letter” that we used to send to judges — and we have been successful in showing up in court and explaining that the copyright holder has no interest or ability to proceed with this case, and they are only using this lawsuit to force a settlement from the defendant — but this is a long and tedious road.
Judges own their own courtrooms, and they allow these cases to proceed. Some don’t — many don’t — but as soon as you receive an ISP Subpoena Notification Letter in the mail that you were implicated in a copyright infringement lawsuit against you, your judge has let the case proceed.
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REASON #5: It is easier for a federal judge to let this case proceed rather than stop it because these cases settle out of court eventually with minimal effort.
I would hate to blame the judges for allowing the thousands of Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits to proceed, but really, with lawmakers which are not focused on copyright issues, for the last decade+, they have been the only gatekeepers who are legally able to stop these lawsuits. They have not.
I expect that since most Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits settle out of court (for “guilty” defendants), and the others are dismissed (e.g., after the deposition where the defendant did not do the downloads), these cases ALMOST NEVER GO TO TRIAL.
So as long as the judge rubber-stamps the case, gives the plaintiff freedom to do whatever they want to do, the case will be dismissed on its own in just a few months with little-to-no effort by the judge.
Problem solved for the judge. Problem solved for the copyright holder. The little guy gets financially destroyed in the process, and this is truly unfortunate.
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FINAL REASON #6: Because we do not value our privacy, and we let ourselves be tracked and sued. Because we do not protect our internet traffic with a VPN.
HOW STRIKE 3 HOLDINGS LAWSUITS COULD GO AWAY FOREVER. USE A VPN.
Disclaimer: Understand that as an attorney, I am never advocating that anyone break the law. I am also not advocating that anyone download someone else’s copyrighted videos without a license. Stealing is wrong.
I think I have made my point with the headings. The final reason why Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits continue is because we do not value our personal privacy. We do not take steps to prevent others from snooping on our activities, and we do not protect our internet traffic with a VPN.
I have said this for years — IF everyone used a VPN to hide their IP address, then these cases would stop literally overnight. Most VPN providers are outside of the US, and they do not keep logs on their users’ activities.
If there is an ISP subpoena sent to a VPN provider about a particular account, and that VPN provider does not keep logs on who was assigned a particular IP address at a particular date and time, there can be NO CONNECTION between the downloader and the IP address he used when connecting to the VPN.
Hence, the copyright holder would never have been able to determine who was the ISP account subscriber assigned a particular IP address because it would have been the VPN’s protected IP address that connected to the Bittorrent swarm, not the IP address assigned to the subscriber by the ISP.
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There is so much to say here, but this article is merely discussing the financial benefits to the Strike 3 Holdings LLC plaintiff to keep filing these Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits forever (and why I believe they will never stop suing downloaders).
The best I could do is suggest a way that there are no longer any downloaders to receive their lawsuits. If everyone used proper VPNs that protected the identities of their VPN subscribers, then these lawsuits would end overnight.
The reality, however, is that there will always be DNS leaks even when using a VPN (this is avoidable with a kill switch), and there will be individuals who do not value their privacy or individuals who think they will never get caught downloading copyrighted materials.
There will also be an endless supply of internet users who are simply unaware that it is wrong to download copyrighted videos without a license, so these Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits will likely continue forever.
IN CONCLUSION:
Obviously I would like to see these bittorrent-based copyright infringement “John Doe Subscriber” lawsuits disappear overnight. But the reality is that they are here to stay because there will always be an endless supply of potential defendants to sue for copyright infringement.
I would love for there to be a capitalist response to the piracy problem — perhaps make copyrighted content more readily available and for cheaper. Perhaps Strike 3 Holdings, LLC and similar companies need to find a more profitable way to sell access to their videos without having to resort to copyright infringement lawsuits, apparent extortion, and heavy-handed settlement demands.
For now, the Strike 3 Holdings lawsuits seem to be the most profitable method of enforcing their copyrights, so I expect that they will continue for the time being, and this is truly unfortunate.
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