Take-Two takes the GTA 6 leak hunt to court: four DMCA subpoenas, and Discord says it has not been served

Take-Two's response to the Grand Theft Auto VI breach is now on a court docket. On August 20 and 21 the publisher filed four DMCA subpoena requests in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, asking Microsoft, Discord, X Corp and Google to identify whoever is behind the "cyberleek" persona, according to the filings reported by Kotaku on August 21 and TorrentFreak on August 23. The newest turn came on August 24, when Discord said in public that nothing has reached it yet.

The demands are wide. From Microsoft, Take-Two wants the company's own records from its internal investigation of that persona, along with account IDs, registration emails, IP logs, phone numbers, linked Google and Xbox accounts, device identifiers and any GTA-related content sitting in OneDrive; Kotaku reports the petition sets September 4 as the date for handing it over. The Discord request covers identifying data for every account that posted in three named servers going back to June 1, a net wide enough to catch people who only read the chat. The two later filings are narrower: three named accounts on X, and one video with three channels on YouTube. Kirkland & Ellis signed the Microsoft and Discord petitions, Ruttenberg IP Law the ones aimed at X and Google. The stated purpose in the paperwork is "to obtain the identity of an alleged infringer or infringers", and the information "will only be used for the purpose of protecting Take-Two's rights".

Section 512(h) of the DMCA is what makes this possible: a rights holder can get a subpoena identifying an alleged infringer without suing anyone first and without any ruling on the merits, since the court clerk issuing it is enough. That also explains why nothing has actually moved. TorrentFreak reported on August 23 that the court had cleared the subpoenas for issuance, but that they had not been issued and no user data had changed hands. Discord's marketing director Ryan Rigney said the same thing in one line on August 24: "Discord has not yet been served with a subpoena from Take Two. When we do, we'll evaluate the validity and scope before responding."

None of it moves the calendar. "Grand Theft Auto VI: An Extended Look" still premieres on Netflix on Thursday, August 27 at 3 p.m. Eastern, with the free posting on the Rockstar Games YouTube channel and the official site six hours later at 9 p.m., and November 19, 2026 stands as the release date. Rockstar itself has said nothing in public about the breach. What exists is a Bloomberg newsletter from August 21 in which Jason Schreier writes that the studio has no plans to move the premiere or change its marketing, that an executive emailed staff condemning the leaker, and that the source of the breach has not been identified. That is reporting built on inside sources rather than an announcement, and it is worth reading as exactly that.

One thing is worth saying plainly, because it decides what you will and will not find here: we do not publish leaked material, we do not describe it and we do not link to it, and it never enters our database. Every claim on the site rests on something official, a document, or a journalist with a name attached. Our breakdown of the Extended Look will be built from the official video, once there is an official video to break down.