COPYRIGHT OWNER'S NEED TO IDENTIFY DEFENDANTS TO PURSUE INFRINGEMENT CLAIMS OUTWEIGHED DEFENDANT'S INTEREST IN ANONYMITY

摘要

The need of the owner of copyrights in a pornographic video for the Doe defendants' identities to pursue its copyright infringement claims outweighed the defendants' First Amendment interests in anonymity. See Hard Drive Productions, Inc. v. Does 1-1,495, 2012 WL 4381151 (D.D.C. 2012). Hard Drive Productions, Inc. filed a complaint against 1,495 unidentified defendants, alleging that each defendant used a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol called BitTorrent to download and distribute its copyrighted motion picture, "Amateur Alleur-Maelynn," thereby infringing plaintiff's copyright.