Court filing: Meta identified five employees who interacted with pirated adult films in Strike 3 case

What happened

A newly unredacted joint status report in Strike 3 Holdings v. Meta discloses that Meta's own internal investigation identified five employees who appeared to have "interacted with" copies of adult films that Strike 3 characterizes as pirated. Meta had previously disclosed the five employees to opposing counsel and restricted their identities to attorneys' eyes only.

What Meta says

Meta describes the interaction narrowly: the employees may have viewed or opened the files, and the company maintains there is no evidence any of them downloaded, uploaded or seeded content through BitTorrent, or that any torrented content was used in AI training.

The lawsuit behind the filing

Strike 3 Holdings and Counterlife Media allege Meta-associated IP addresses downloaded and distributed 2,396 adult films 6,008 times between 2018 and 2025, and claim the torrenting was connected to acquiring video content for AI systems including Movie Gen. Meta denies the activity was authorized, conducted with corporate knowledge, or used in AI training. Judge Eumi K. Lee allowed the copyright claims to proceed past dismissal; no liability has been established.