A newly unredacted joint status report in the ongoing Strike 3 Holdings v. Meta copyright lawsuit has surfaced a notable detail. Meta’s own internal investigation identified multiple employees who appeared to have “interacted with” copies of adult films that Strike 3 characterizes as pirated. According to the filing, Meta previously disclosed five such employees to opposing counsel, then restricted their identities to attorneys’ eyes only, limiting Strike 3’s ability to pursue them directly.
Meta describes that interaction narrowly. The company says the employees may have viewed or opened the files, and maintains there is no evidence any of them downloaded, uploaded, or seeded content through BitTorrent.
The Lawsuit Behind the Filing
Strike 3 alleges Meta-linked infrastructure torrented thousands of adult films to build AI training datasets.
Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media filed the lawsuit alleging that Meta-associated IP addresses downloaded and distributed 2,396 adult films 6,008 times between 2018 and 2025. The producers claim the torrenting was connected to Meta’s acquisition of video content for AI systems, including its Movie Gen model and related video-generation tools.
Meta has denied that any of the alleged activity was authorized, conducted with corporate knowledge, or used in AI training. The company has also pointed to third-party IP addresses and a discontinued public internet service it once operated as alternative explanations for some of the alleged connections.
Access Is Not the Same as Acquisition
Opening a file and torrenting it are legally and technically distinct acts, and that gap is central to the case.
The evidentiary distinction the filing forces into focus is the difference between access and acquisition. Viewing or opening a file establishes that someone encountered it; BitTorrent evidence would be needed to show that someone downloaded, distributed, or seeded it through the peer-to-peer network Strike 3 describes.
Attribution compounds the challenge for Strike 3. Even if Strike 3 establishes that an employee accessed the confidential files, it must still connect that individual’s conduct to Meta as a corporate actor. That means showing the activity was authorized, directed, or otherwise attributable to the company rather than purely personal. Meta’s stated position is that the activity was unauthorized and unrelated to its AI work.
A Second, Separate Thread
A “John Doe” case involving an alleged former Reality Labs executive adds another disputed timeline to the litigation.
The filing also addresses a parallel “John Doe” matter in which Strike 3 identified an alleged AT&T subscriber as a former Reality Labs executive. Meta argues the individual had already left the company when the alleged torrenting took place. Strike 3 disputes that timeline, contending the alleged infringement traces back to years before the departure.
Where the Case Stands
The claims survived dismissal, but no liability has been established.
Judge Eumi K. Lee allowed Strike 3’s copyright claims to proceed past the dismissal stage, finding the allegations sufficient to continue. The court noted that patterns in the alleged downloads and their connection to Meta-associated IP addresses could support an inference of coordinated activity. That ruling is not a finding of liability; it means only that Strike 3 pleaded enough facts for the case to advance. The core questions of corporate authorization and AI training use remain unresolved, and the corporate-authorization question is likely to be the pivotal issue as discovery continues.
