# Half of all copyright suits now target anonymous internet subscribers

Published 2026-11-07 · By Pushbuild · Data: [US Federal Civil Cases API – 10.9M District Court Cases Since 1988](https://pushbuild.com/apis/federal-civil-cases.html)

**4,111 of 8,084 copyright suits filed in 2025 named an unidentified "Doe" or "subscriber assigned IP address" as defendant, up from 1,951 of 4,211 in 2021.** Robocall suits under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act went from 666 in 2020 to 2,564 in 2025.

Copyright suitsAgainst Doe or subscriber

| Year | Copyright suits | Against Doe or subscriber |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 2021 | 4,211 | 1,951 |
| 2022 | 5,339 | 2,874 |
| 2023 | 6,607 | 3,645 |
| 2024 | 7,225 | 3,948 |
| 2025 | 8,084 | 4,111 |

## Caveats

TCPA got its own code only in 2019; before that these suits were filed under other codes.

## Sources

- [Federal Judicial Center Integrated Database](https://www.fjc.gov/research/idb), read through the Pushbuild [US Federal Civil Cases API](https://pushbuild.com/apis/federal-civil-cases.html) on 2026-11-07

Data as of 2026-11-07. Every figure in this post is in the table above and the CSV below.

Download the data behind this post: [b1-civil-cases-by-type-and-year.csv](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/data/b1-civil-cases-by-type-and-year.csv)

## Get this data

Every number in this post comes from the [US Federal Civil Cases API – 10.9M District Court Cases Since 1988](https://pushbuild.com/apis/federal-civil-cases.html). $0.0008 per row returned; every key gets $1 of free usage each month.

```
curl -X POST https://api.pushbuild.com/federal-civil-cases/run \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"party": "Tesla", "maxItems": 20}'
```

[API docs and key](https://pushbuild.com/apis/federal-civil-cases.html)[More analysis from this data](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/api/federal-civil-cases/)Embed this chart

Free to reuse with the credit link. Paste this HTML into your page, or use the [SVG file](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/copyright-suits-against-doe-defendants/chart.svg).

Want a table like this in Google Sheets, refreshed on demand? Free script: [copy a web table into Google Sheets](https://pushbuild.com/free/scripts/website-table-to-sheets/).

## Related analysis

-

Other · 2026-11-07

### [Immigration detainees' habeas petitions rose 20-fold in 2025](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/immigration-detainee-habeas-petitions-2025/)

9,156 habeas corpus petitions from immigration detainees were filed in federal court in 2025, against 446 in 2024. The previous high was 2,286 in…

-

Other · 2026-11-07

### [The most-sued party in federal court: whoever runs Social Security](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/most-sued-defendants-federal-court/)

Since 2021 the Social Security commissioner, under five names in the records, was the defendant in 68,322 federal cases, more than the United States…

-

Other · 2026-11-07

### [Half of all public comments on open federal rules are on one Alaska oil proposal](https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/most-commented-federal-rules-open-now/)

The Bureau of Land Management's proposal on production sites in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska had 72,576 public comments on November 7,…

Header photo: [Rsparks3](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Data_center_roof.jpg), CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

---
As of 2026-11-07. Source: https://pushbuild.com/apis/analysis/copyright-suits-against-doe-defendants/