Porn Site’s Lawsuit Tactics May Get Boost From Appeals Court

A porn site operator’s strategy of filing thousands of lawsuits against illegal downloaders got a boost from federal appeals court judges who questioned whether the firm should be penalized for the content of its movies.

Strike 3 Holdings LLC, operator of such sites as “Tushy” and “Vixen,” is trying to learn the identity of a person who downloaded movies through the file-sharing network BitTorrent. A federal judge in Washington denied the request, saying the company’s flood of lawsuits smacks of “extortion.”

Lawsuits filed by porn companies make up the bulk of copyright-infringement cases filed in the U.S. The closely watched ...