Vondran Legal® - Strike 3 Holdings Litigation Insights - MaxMind geolocation technology, just how accurate is it to identify the location of potential infringers of adult movies? Receive a subpoena from your ISP, call us at (877) 276-5084.
Introduction
Strike 3 Holdings is a mass filer of copyright infringement lawsuits in the United States. No company has ever filed as many lawsuits as they have alleging illegal download and sharing of their copyright protected adult videos. They find out people are downloading their movies via torrent protocols, and they want to go after them for a monetary settlement that often exceeds $10,000.
However, at first, all they have to go on is an IP address attached to the downloads. An IP address is basically your address on the internet. For residences, your ISP can change this from time to time (called a dynamic IP address). You can check out your own IP address here
Once you have the IP address, you can punch this in to learn more details, such as the area where the infringer is located, and who their ISP is (ex. Charter Communications, Cox, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Frontier, etc.). Here is an example of what you might get from Geolocation.com
From here, all Strike 3 Holdings needs to do is file a copyright infringement lawsuit against a "John Doe Defendant" (identity unknown) and then seek "early discovery" from the court, which is routinely granted. Strike 3 then sends a subpoena to the Internet Service Provider attached to the IP address, and they demand the name and address of the subscriber. This may or may not be the alleged downloader. It is their job to then perform due diligence to ascertain who they believe is the actual downloader. This is the one they will pursue.
In Strike 3's investigation, they use a technology called "MaxMind" and this is set forth in the allegations in their complaint:
MaxMind estimated geolocation accuracy
"MaxMind estimates that its GeoIP2 products are 99.8% accurate at identifying users at the country level. For IPs within the U.S., they estimate an accuracy of 80% at the state or region level, and 66% for cities within a 50 km radius. However, IP geolocation accuracy can vary depending on several factors, including:
- Virtual private networks (VPNs) and proxy servers: These can hide the true location of an IP address.
- Dynamic IP addresses: These can change periodically, which can result in inaccuracies.
- Internet connection service: Landline connection-based IP addresses are generally more accurate than mobile connection-based ones
GeoIP2 City Accuracy
According to the MaxMinds website
They also note: "IP geolocation is more accurate for broadband IP addresses and less accurate for cellular networks."
If you look at 50km that is approximately accurate within 31 miles:
Using this figure, if true, a downloader in the southern part of Huntington Beach, California could be confused with a downloader from the north part of Dana Point, California. So, there is a margin of error that cannot be avoided. In our many years of handing these cases, we have had occasion where Strike 3 pursued an alleged infringement using two IP addresses. We thought maybe it was just a dynamic IP that changed at one location, but the ISP response showed two locations over 30 miles away. We protested, but they tried to pursue both locations against one client, even though our client never visited the other city at issue.
At any rate, this should give you a basic idea of how IP geolocation tracking and identification can work in BitTorrent defense cases.
Contact a California BitTorrent Defense Law Firm
Our firm is a nationwide leader in handling Strike 3 Holdings adult pornography cases. We have settled several hundred cases representing MILLIONS of dollars in settlements, always fighting for the best deal in each case. You can review our Vondran Legal® client reviews here (over 110 real client reviews).
To discuss representation, call us at (877) 276-5084 or drop us a message through our form on the right side of this page. In this niche area of copyright law, there is no substitute for experience.
