This is especially true when dealing with anonymous Doe defendants at the earliest stages of litigation because it is not certain that the person associated with the IP address—the person who is
potentially being dragged into court hundreds of miles away— committed the act at all.162 Indeed, as one judge pointed out, “it is no more likely that the subscriber to an IP address carried out a particular computer function . . . than to say an individual who pays the telephone bill made a specific phone call.”163 The risk of “false positives”—even when the subuscriber information is known—is very
real and must not be downplayed.164