Strike 3 Holdings alleges a prolific residential torrent pirate is a Meta Reality Labs executive tied to its $446 million lawsuit

Strike 3 Holdings has filed a motion to relate a routine John Doe piracy case to its larger lawsuit against Meta. The adult film producer claims its investigation revealed the anonymous subscriber of a residential AT&T IP address is an executive in Meta's Reality Labs division. The company cites the executive's LinkedIn profile and alleges he has worked at Facebook and Meta for over a decade. Strike 3 logged nearly 20,000 files downloaded from this connection, including VR adult titles for the Quest headset.

Strike 3 argues the timing of the downloads suggests a deliberate shift to hide infringing activity. The producer claims that just hours after emailing Meta's lawyers about BitTorrent activity on corporate IP addresses, it recorded infringement on the executive's residential IP address. However, Meta disputes this connection, stating it cannot even verify the subscriber is an employee without knowing his name. Meta relies on the standard defense that an IP address does not identify the actual infringer, arguing nothing ties the downloads to the company.

Meta has asked the court to keep the executive's name and title under seal, a tactic used earlier for two other individuals in the broader case. If Judge Eumi K. Lee relates the cases, Strike 3 plans to amend the John Doe complaint to name Meta directly and compel the company to hand over its torrenting records. This would turn the executive's home downloads into evidence for the $446 million suit over 2,973 films. The outcome hinges on whether the court accepts the timing and volume of downloads as proof of corporate involvement.