Porn studio sues 15 Minnesotans over illegal downloads: Charges

By Nick Longworth

Updated March 13, 2023 4:15pm CDT

Crime and Public Safety

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A pornography production company is suing 13 people in Minnesota for what it believes to be an illegal infringement on the use of its product titles stemming from alleged downloads.

According to a lawsuit filed by Strike 3 Holdings LLC, the 13 defendants "downloaded their productions illegally via BitTorrent" and then distributed them to others.

Using the BitTorrent protocol, the lawsuit alleges each defendant to have been "committing rampant and wholesale copyright infringement by downloading Strike 3’s motion pictures as well as distributing them to others."

"[The] Defendant is, in a word, stealing these works on a grand scale," the lawsuit alleges.

Although the downloads were made anonymously, Strike 3 says it has since been able to identify each defendant through their Internet Service Provider, or ISP address, provided by Comcast Corp. (an internet service provider).

Strike 3 has filed nearly 500 similar lawsuits since Jan. 1, 2023.

Crime and Public Safety Minnesota