Strike 3 Holdings has already filed over a thousand lawsuits against alleged BitTorrent pirates in U.S. courts this year. The adult entertainment company used to be part of a larger group of prolific litigants but it is now the only one left. It is responsible for the vast majority of all piracy lawsuits filed in the US this year.

For more than 15 years, alleged file-sharers around the world have been pressured to pay significant settlement fees.

These so-called ‘copyright-trolling’ efforts are pretty straightforward. Copyright holders obtain a list of ‘pirating’ IP-addresses and then request a subpoena from the court, compelling ISPs to hand over the associated customer data.

These schemes can be rather lucrative. With minimal effort, rightsholders can rake in hundreds or thousands of dollars per defendant. That is, if a court grants expedited discovery, allowing the companies to request the personal details of alleged infringers from ISPs.

The rest of this article can be read on TorrentFreak.com

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