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A federal copyright lawsuit targeting six of the most prominent private BitTorrent trackers, including PassThePopcorn, BroadcasTheNet, and HDBits, may be the work of an impostor. Attorneys representing two of the alleged operators told a federal judge they tracked down the real person behind the films cited in the complaint. Responding to the revelation, Illinois Judge Andrea Wood slammed the brakes on pending motions, scheduling an in-person hearing to get to the bottom of it.
Last September, we reported that a filmmaker named Matthew Schneider obtained a DMCA subpoena through a California federal court, seeking information from Cloudflare on several prominent private trackers.
These trackers, including PassThePopcorn, BroadcasTheNet, KaraGarga, HDBits, and Beyond-HD, allegedly shared several of his works without permission.
At the time, multiple sources informed TorrentFreak that several of the “infringing URLs” submitted as evidence did not point to working torrent pages and used URL structures that didn’t match the targeted sites. The films could not be found on several of the trackers either.
After that, the docket went quiet, until last December, when the person identifying himself as Schneider escalated the matter through a federal copyright lawsuit.
In a complaint filed in the Northern District of Illinois, the filmmaker sued ten unnamed ‘John Doe’ defendants, alleging that all six trackers are part of a single coordinated “piracy Enterprise” run by the same people.
The complaint named PassThePopcorn.me, BroadcasTheNet, KaraGarga.in, HDBits.org, Beyond-HD.me, and Bibliotik.me, calling them “coordinated access points to the same underlying BitTorrent-based distribution service.”
The plaintiff filed pro se, which means that he’s not represented by an attorney. He listed a mailing address in Sanborn, New York, while the complaint described him as a UK-based filmmaker.
In February 2026, the court allowed Schneider to subpoena seven companies, Reddit, GoDaddy, Cloudflare, PayPal, Stripe, Namecheap, and X Corp, requesting identity information on the Doe defendants.
This triggered an objection from several of the Doe defendants, who filed motions to quash through their attorneys. As a result, all seven subpoenas were placed in abeyance in May, until these outstanding motions would be decided.
One of the defendants, identified as Doe 7 and linked to a Reddit account, accused the plaintiff of building the case on fabricated evidence.
Doe 7 wrote that the sworn declaration supporting the discovery motion came from “Saumya Shah, Partner and Senior Investigator” at a UK firm called “Northbridge Digital Investigations.” Doe 7 searched the UK Companies House registry and found no such company. No trace of Shah appeared anywhere online. TorrentFreak independently confirmed these claims.
The same Doe defendant also challenged the roughly 130 URLs submitted as evidence. Intriguingly, the exhibit also includes URLs from other pirate sites and WHOIS lookups on at least ten additional private tracker domains not named in the complaint.
Schneider, meanwhile, doubled down that the copyright infringement claims against Doe 7 are valid, but he did not address whether an investigator named Shah exists or Northbridge is a real company.
Yesterday, TorrentFreak listened in as all parties were present at a telephonic hearing before Judge Andrea R. Wood, to address the motions to quash and a motion to proceed anonymously. However, that hearing took an unexpected turn, which changes the stakes.
Before the hearing began, defense counsel Erin Russell, representing Doe 1, had contacted the judge’s chambers directly to address an important matter. Russell acknowledged that this was an extraordinary step that wasn’t taken lightly. However, she felt it needed to be addressed before any rulings would be made.
Russell, working alongside counsel for the other Does, Haley Finch, told the court they had developed serious suspicions that the person litigating as Matthew Schneider is not the real Matthew Schneider.
Both counsel conducted detailed research and traced the listed films and Schneider to a Canadian production company, Dirtbag Films, which we had separately identified in our earlier coverage.
However, the finding that Schneider is Canadian does not match the information shared by the person who presented himself as Schneider in court.
Finch, who is a Canadian attorney, had a personal contact connected to Dirtbag Films and through that connection, she eventually reached the actual filmmaker. Russell, meanwhile, reached out to a Dirtbag contact separately and was also connected to the Canadian Matthew Schneider.
The attorneys informed the court that the real Matthew Schneider signed a declaration confirming his identity and that he resides in Ontario, Canada.
After being confronted with this information, Judge Wood asked the plaintiff on the call to respond. He said he did not see why this information would delay any rulings. At the end of the hearing, he stated, “I’m Matthew Schneider,” while stressing that the case should not be delayed.
Judge Wood did not rule on any of the pending motions to quash or proceed anonymously. She also denied the plaintiff’s motion to strike Doe 7’s filings.
Instead, she signaled that, if the allegations are true, the plaintiff could face sanctions, directing the defense to file a motion supported by the declaration from the Canadian Matthew Schneider. In addition, she scheduled an in-person hearing next month to resolve the identity questions.
In the meantime, Judge Wood stressed that the plaintiff may not seek to obtain personal information about the Does and that nothing identifying the defendants should be filed on the docket.
Doe 7, who also appeared on the call with his prospective counsel, indicated that he anticipates filing a motion to join the defense filings submitted by the other Does.
Before yesterday’s hearing, this lawsuit was already quite novel, as it is the first one that targets multiple prominent private torrent trackers. Now, the stakes have completely changed, with an unprecedented impersonation claim, which, if it turns out to be true, will likely lead to a dismissal and sanctions for the plaintiff.
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A copy of Doe 7’s motion to quash is available here (pdf). The plaintiff’s motion to strike Doe 7’s filings can be found here (pdf). The original complaint can be found here (pdf).
Source: Torrent Freak