Hard Drive Productions, Inc. v.

Does 1-1,495
Civil Action No. 11-1741

Facts:

 Hard Drive Productions, Inc. (“Hard Drive”) is an adult film production company
that produced an adult film entitled “Amateur Allure-MaeLynn.
 Hard Drive filed a copyright infringement case against 1,495 John Does for the
illegal copying and distribution of the aforementioned adult film via BitTorrent.
 Seeing, however, that the identities of the said John Does remained hidden, Hard
Drive filed a motion in court for, among others, the discovery and subpoena of the
same so that they may be properly revealed.
 Thereafter, several motions to quash the same were filed by some of the John Doe
defendants.
o It must be noted that these motions did not identify the John Doe defendants
by their true names, but rather, by their IP addresses or simply “John Doe”.
o It was also insisted by the same John Does that their motions be “under
seal”, regardless of whether they lose on their motion or not.
o Some, however, were willing to disclose their identities.
 The Court, consequently, issued an order requiring the John Doe defendants to
identify themselves properly.
o This order was challenged by a motion to stay order, which was filed by the
Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Issue(s):

1. Whether the respective motions filed by the relevant John Does and the
Foundation challening the motion of Hard Drive and the order of the court
should be given due course?

Held:

1. No, the said motions must necessarily be denied.

Firstly, the John Doe movants cannot be said to have legal standing in court; hence,
have no standing to quash the subpoena. Under the relevant rules, a party filing in
court must caption their name and full address. Considering that their motions were
filed anonymously, the court believed that the motions failed to satisfy this
requirement.

Secondly, it must be noted that the subpoena was issued against the John Does’ ISPs
and not to the John Does, themselves. Simply, the John Does were actually not the
actual defendants so-named by Hard Drive. As such, the John Does filing a motion to
quash the same can be deemed as being absent of an actual case or controversy
over which the court can exercise its jurisdiction.
Finally, the issue of venue and jurisdiction over the John Doe defendants cannot be
said to be a determined manner, since, among others, it is improper to consider
personal jurisdiction prior to the actual naming of the defendants, more so since
defendants are allowed to waive defences and/or litigate on the same.