Take-Two has issued a subpoena in a federal court requesting information from both Microsoft and Discord as it hunts the leaker or leakers behind the recent spate of GTA 6 gameplay videos.
First reported by Kotaku, the Rockstar Games parent company issued the request yesterday, August 20, in the New York Southern District Court as part of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) subpoena. It wants information and records relating to the ‘CyberLeek’ account, which is allegedly behind the GTA 6 leaks.
The subpoena requests identifying information associated with all user accounts that were members of a number of Discord servers. Take-Two wants all internal Microsoft business and investigative records associated with Microsoft’s own internal investigation of CyberLeek, too, and calls for any GTA, Rockstar, or CyberLeek content from the Discord members’ OneDrive accounts.
“The copyrighted material includes but is not limited to audio visual content, artwork, images, dialogue, or other creative elements,” the filing reads. “Take-Two, through its counsel of record, has submitted a sworn declaration confirming that the purpose for which the DMCA subpoena is sought is to obtain the identity of an alleged infringer or infringers, and that such information will only be used for the purpose of protecting Take-Two’s rights.”
One of the Discord servers mentioned in the filing is ‘discord.gg/darkviperau,’ which is described as the DarkViperAU editors’ server. DarkViperAU is the online name of Australian GTA content creator Matthew “Matt” Judge, who has 2.27 million subscribers on YouTube. Judge has published detailed breakdowns of the leaked GTA 6 videos this week.
In a tweet, Judge responded to Take-Two’s subpoena and the mention of his name within it. “I don’t know anything,” he insisted. “That isn’t my editors Discord. There aren’t even any clips of the leaks in either of my Discords.
“I am confused. I did say he can’t drive multiple times, so maybe I caused him to write ‘Cyberleek can’t drive’ on the most recent clips? Maybe he visited my Discord, I dunno. Rockstar hasn’t emailed me, I suspect if they thought I knew something personally they would do so.
“Everyone is talking about these leaks, I am not special, hopefully.”
The subpoena has emerged even as the leaker continues to release GTA 6 gameplay videos. Today, August 21, the GTA 6 leaks stretched into a fourth consecutive day after yet another gameplay video hit the internet. The latest video contains supercar gameplay. As with the previously released videos, it advertises a memecoin, which one GTA fan recently traced to a Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange that might be used to identify the leaker. The watermark on this latest video reads: “HIGHER MARKET CAP = MORE LEEKS.”
Today’s is the sixth apparent GTA 6 gameplay video that has leaked onto the internet this week, and neither Rockstar nor Take-Two has issued any statement on the matter. IGN has asked both for comment.
The leaks come just a week before the release of Grand Theft Auto 6: An Extended Look, which is a timed Netflix exclusive. That’s due Thursday, August 27, and will remain exclusive on Netflix for six hours before it makes its way to other platforms such as YouTube.
Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].