A new wave of BitTorrent copyright infringement lawsuits has arrived in the Northern District of Illinois, this time targeting alleged downloaders of the film The Trade of Innocents. Five separate complaints were filed under the name The Bicycle Peddler, LLC, collectively naming over 200 John Doe defendants. If your IP address was flagged and you have received notice from your Internet service provider, you need to understand these cases and respond strategically.
The following five complaints were filed in the Northern District of Illinois by attorneys Todd S. Parkhurst and Michael A. Hierl:
Each complaint alleges that the named John Doe defendants used BitTorrent to download and distribute The Trade of Innocents without authorization, thereby infringing the plaintiff’s exclusive rights under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 106. The plaintiff seeks statutory damages, attorney’s fees, and injunctive relief.
The Northern District of Illinois has been a popular venue for BitTorrent copyright cases since at least 2011. The structure of these cases is familiar: the plaintiff files suit naming all IP addresses identified by its monitoring software as a single group of John Doe defendants, obtains court approval for expedited discovery, subpoenas the relevant ISPs to identify subscribers, and then pursues individual settlements or amends the complaint to name specific defendants.
The decision to file five separate complaints with smaller groups of defendants—rather than one massive complaint with all 230+ Does together—reflects lessons learned from earlier mass-joinder cases. Courts in the Northern District of Illinois and elsewhere had already begun severing large multi-defendant complaints and dismissing all but the first defendant on the grounds that joining hundreds of defendants who each engaged in separate download transactions did not satisfy the joinder requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20.
If your ISP has notified you that it received a subpoena in one of these cases, you have the right to challenge that subpoena before your identifying information is turned over. The grounds for quashing a subpoena include:
A motion to quash is typically your first opportunity to challenge these cases before your identity is revealed. Once your identity is disclosed, the plaintiff may contact you directly with settlement demands or amend the complaint to name you specifically.
Courts have consistently recognized that an IP address does not identify a person—it identifies an Internet connection. The subscriber associated with an IP address may have no personal involvement in the alleged downloading. A household with multiple users, roommates, or an unsecured wireless network presents exactly this scenario. The plaintiff must ultimately prove that a specific named defendant committed the infringing act, not merely that the defendant paid the ISP bill for a particular connection.
Time is critical in these cases. ISPs provide a limited window—typically 21 to 30 days from notice—to challenge a subpoena before producing your information. If that window closes, your options narrow significantly. Do not ignore subpoena notices. Do not contact the plaintiff’s attorneys without legal representation. Do not post about the case on social media or in online forums where plaintiffs’ counsel monitors for admissions.
Revision Legal’s copyright defense attorneys are admitted in the Northern District of Illinois and have extensive experience representing John Doe defendants in BitTorrent copyright cases. We understand the specific judges and procedures in that district and can act quickly to protect your rights. Contact us today for a confidential consultation.
The Northern District of Illinois became one of the most active federal venues for BitTorrent copyright suits during the early 2010s, driven in part by the filing practices of several copyright enforcement firms and in part by the district’s efficient case management procedures. At its peak, hundreds of John Doe cases were pending simultaneously, each naming dozens to hundreds of anonymous defendants alleged to have downloaded specific films via BitTorrent. The district’s judges developed a body of case law on the procedural issues that defined mass copyright litigation nationally.
Joinder of multiple defendants. The foundational procedural question in mass BitTorrent cases was whether multiple defendants who allegedly downloaded the same file at different times could be joined in a single action. Courts in the Northern District held that participation in a BitTorrent swarm does not constitute the kind of “same transaction or occurrence” that satisfies Rule 20(a) joinder requirements when the defendants downloaded at different times, possibly using different torrent trackers. This reasoning resulted in severed cases and much higher per-case filing costs that made mass litigation uneconomical.
Early termination and judicial skepticism. Northern District judges expressed increasing skepticism of the copyright troll business model in published opinions. The Prenda Law collapse — which resulted in sanctions, bar complaints, and criminal referrals against the firm’s principals — marked the effective end of industrial-scale BitTorrent litigation as a business model in Illinois and other circuits.
Individuals who receive John Doe copyright notices in Illinois proceedings should consult counsel before responding to the lawsuit or any ISP subpoena. The viability of a motion to quash depends on the specific facts of the case, the copyright holder’s identity and litigation history, and the procedural posture of the action. In cases where the plaintiff’s complaint does not survive scrutiny on its own terms — incomplete copyright registration, facially defective notice of infringement, improper joinder — early aggressive defense can produce dismissal without significant expense. An attorney experienced in copyright defense in the N.D. Illinois can evaluate these issues quickly and provide a realistic picture of the risk-adjusted cost of defense versus settlement.
Defendants in Northern District of Illinois mass copyright cases also benefited from the district’s general rules regarding early case management conferences and mandatory Rule 16 disclosures, which required plaintiffs to identify the specific defendants they intended to pursue and to explain the basis for their identification of each John Doe. This procedural requirement exposed the thinness of IP-address-only identification early in the case, before significant discovery costs were incurred. The combination of early judicial scrutiny on joinder and identification, high per-case filing fees after severance, and increasing willingness to award fees under § 505 in favor of prevailing defendants ultimately made the N.D. Illinois one of the most hostile venues in the country for mass copyright trolling — a development that benefited individual defendants who would otherwise have faced significant settlement pressure with little recourse.
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