Activision files DMCA subpoena against Reddit to identify Warzone leaker

Saucycarpdog · Feb 21, 2020

Activision files DMCA subpoena against Reddit to identify Warzone leaker - Charlie INTEL

Activision Publishing has filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act subpoena against Reddit Inc this week to get the identity behind a Reddit user. The

charlieintel.com

Activision Publishing has filed a Digital Millennium Copyright Act subpoena against Reddit Inc this week to get the identity behind a Reddit user. The subpoena was filed in California court on February 14.

Reddit user Assyrian2410 posted on r/ModernWarfare last week a post titled "I found this image online, not sure what it is." The post showcased what appeared to be an artwork for "Call of Duty: Warzone." The user quickly deleted their post from Reddit and deleted their account, but the image spread around the internet.

Per THR, Activision is looking to identify who is the leaker behind the Assyrian2410 account to identify how the image was leaked.

"Reddit is the service provider to which the subject of the subpoena-Reddit user 'Assyrian2410' – posted infringing Activision content. The Content infringes Activision's exclusive rights under copyright law. Specifically, it infringes Activision's rights in its popular video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Activision is seeking the information from Reddit to then pursue legal action against Assyrian2410 for posting the image online.

At the time of this writing, Activision has yet to even announce Call of Duty Warzone officially yet. All information has just been leaks via sources and in-game files. There still is no confirmed release time table for this mode.

Einchy · Feb 21, 2020

I mean, why? The new update had a trailer for this, it's no secret it's coming. All the image revealed was that it's called Warzone.

This seems real fucking petty.

Thiago · Feb 21, 2020

Could Reddit refuse the give the information to Activision?

cdm00 · Feb 21, 2020

COD leaks practically every year, why would this be what set them off?

bsigg · Feb 21, 2020

Einchy said:
I mean, why? The new update had a trailer for this, it's no secret it's coming. All the image revealed was that it's called Warzone.

This seems real fucking petty.

They're trying to figure out where it came from so they can a) sue who leaked it and b) set a precedent of suing people who leak confidential information to deter people.

kai3345 · Feb 21, 2020

i feel like this would set a really shitty precedent

Dreamboum · Feb 21, 2020

they're going to go harder against this guy than anyone is ever going to go against kotick being on epstein's flight logs :/

thonerayman · Feb 21, 2020

This seems like a bunch of malarkey. Just activision waving their big d*&k around to try and scare people.

Komo · Feb 21, 2020

Einchy said:
I mean, why? The new update had a trailer for this, it's no secret it's coming. All the image revealed was that it's called Warzone.

This seems real fucking petty.

It's because one of their own employees leaked it. They rarely if ever outsource QA and that means someone at IW QA leaked it. Any company will take an internal breach stupid serious.

poklane · Feb 21, 2020

The reason they're probably doing this is because it appears the leaker might be an Activsion or Infinity Ward employee. The leaked image in question was promo art for the game, not just something datamined or leaked through a bug so it's quite understandable as to why they wanna know who this person is.

Deleted member 61469 · Feb 21, 2020

If the leaker was careful, they will never be able to find him

Komo · Feb 21, 2020

poklane said:
The reason they're probably doing this is because it appears the leaker might be an Activsion or Infinity Ward employee. The leaked image in question was promo art for the game, not just something datamined or leaked through a bug so it's quite understandable as to why they wanna know who this person is.

To boot not just that but any potential money they would have put towards marketing, probably moot at this point because the impact they tried to make with it compared to the oh nice it's called warzone is a lot different.

TheGhost · Feb 21, 2020

I see no problem with this if it was an employee at their company. Got to terminate them.

udivision · Feb 21, 2020

poklane said:
The reason they're probably doing this is because it appears the leaker might be an Activsion or Infinity Ward employee. The leaked image in question was promo art for the game, not just something datamined or leaked through a bug so it's quite understandable as to why they wanna know who this person is.

Oh, interesting.

Schwinner · Feb 21, 2020

Quick thought, Does anyone think because Nintendo and The Pokemon Company/Gamefreak went after the leakers of the game successfully it gave Activision the same confidence to stop the people that leak their stuff or are we just hearing more about it now/this always being the case?

poklane said:
The reason they're probably doing this is because it appears the leaker might be an Activsion or Infinity Ward employee. The leaked image in question was promo art for the game, not just something datamined or leaked through a bug so it's quite understandable as to why they wanna know who this person is.

Ok that makes more sense because I never saw them going after this hard before.

riotous · Feb 21, 2020

It's a publicly traded company; the leak was likely from someone on the inside... they take this stuff pretty seriously even if the exact leak wasn't super meaningful.

LycanXIII · Feb 21, 2020

So weird that they'd target this Reddit user for leaking a picture of a title screen, and not someone like Schreier who has reported several times about this years CoD struggles.

I don't believe that anyone should be targeted, and they should just say "yeah, something's coming" and be done with it.

Phantom · Feb 21, 2020

He was probably behind 7 proxies, just like me

Aswitch · Feb 21, 2020

It's very weird that this in particular has them in a tiffy, but other misc leaks regarding other game content related to MW is completely fine.

Commedieu · Feb 21, 2020

lol @ activision.

skullmuffins · Feb 21, 2020

LycanXIII said:
So weird that they'd target this Reddit user for leaking a picture of a title screen, and not someone like Schreier who has reported several times about this years CoD struggles.

I don't believe that anyone should be targeted, and they should just say "yeah, something's coming" and be done with it.

I don't think it's weird that they're not suing a journalist

OrigamiPirate · Feb 21, 2020

kai3345 said:
i feel like this would set a really shitty precedent

Probably part of the goal, I fear

Death Penalty · Feb 21, 2020

On the one hand if this is just some random reddit user, absolutely fuck Activision for trying to take such drastic measures. On the other hand if they're trying to sniff out an employee who's stabbing them in the back, I kinda get where they're coming from.

Either way I hope reddit is able to tell them to screw off.

Moist_Owlet · Feb 21, 2020

I get it but also fuck activision.

Maybe they could just release the fucking thing instead of teasing us for 6 weeks

Maximo · Feb 21, 2020

skullmuffins said:
I don't think it's weird that they're not suing a journalist

Didn't Take Two initially sue a Journalist (website) for publishing not publicly announced information about Read Read Redemption 2?

Website pulls Red Dead Redemption 2 leak story, Rockstar directs £1m settlement to charity

A UK website has pulled an article published in February 2018 that revealed unannounced gameplay details about Red Dead…

www.eurogamer.net

poklane · Feb 21, 2020

LycanXIII said:
So weird that they'd target this Reddit user for leaking a picture of a title screen, and not someone like Schreier who has reported several times about this years CoD struggles.

I don't believe that anyone should be targeted, and they should just say "yeah, something's coming" and be done with it.

Would there even be any legal basis to go after someone like Jason Schreier? People like him have 0 contractual obligation to keep Activision's secret a secret, that's on the people who signed a NDA.

Hippopuncher12 · Feb 21, 2020

LycanXIII said:
So weird that they'd target this Reddit user for leaking a picture of a title screen, and not someone like Schreier who has reported several times about this years CoD struggles.

I don't believe that anyone should be targeted, and they should just say "yeah, something's coming" and be done with it.

It was an employee so it 100% makes sense they would try to find out who it was. The company you work for doesn't want you leaking shit to people.

pswii60 · Feb 21, 2020

ThiagoJG said:
Could Reddit refuse the give the information to Activision?

As far as I understand, DMCA only gives Activision the right to request the offending material is taken down, if it hasn't been already. Not to provide identities of those who may have uploaded the content to the site. Leaker may have used a burner email account and VPN regardless.

riotous · Feb 21, 2020

pswii60 said:
As far as I understand, DMCA only gives Activision the right to request the offending material is taken down, if it hasn't been already. Not to provide identities of those who may have uploaded the content to the site. Leaker may have used a burner email account and VPN regardless.

Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is a part of the DMCA or related to it; it describes the subpoena process Activision is using, and yeah they are required to follow it.

Reddit is limited in their liability (hence the name of the act), but if they don't follow the rules, they become liable.

devSin · Feb 21, 2020

ThiagoJG said:
Could Reddit refuse the give the information to Activision?

No, they have to comply.

That doesn't mean they have the information being requested. But if they do, they'd either need to hand it over or try to challenge the request (which they won't do).

kai3345 said:
i feel like this would set a really shitty precedent

It's the law. There is no precedent being set here.

Copyright holders do this all the time.

nillapuddin · Feb 21, 2020

My buddy looked into it and it seems like Activision specifically wants this to happen in Q2 for finance reasons (there's a lot of evidence for this)

So my wild tin foil conjecture is that IW heard from the top they were gunna be forced to delay til April and they thought if they wagged it in our faces enough (menu video, classified, leaked image, etc) then they would have to let them release when they wanted to satiate the fanbase

CountAntonio · Feb 21, 2020

TheGhost said:
I see no problem with this if it was an employee at their company. Got to terminate them.

Yes this seems like them wanting to catch an insider leaking stuff not the dataminers.

A Grizzly Bear · Feb 21, 2020

Maximo said:
Didn't Take Two initially sue a Journalist (website) for publishing not publicly announced information about Read Read Redemption 2?

Website pulls Red Dead Redemption 2 leak story, Rockstar directs £1m settlement to charity

A UK website has pulled an article published in February 2018 that revealed unannounced gameplay details about Red Dead…

www.eurogamer.net

This isn't the same. They had acquired confidential documents and used that as their source. It's much harder to go after a journalist's confidential sources.

fastballspecial · Feb 21, 2020

No one better rat this dude out.

OmegaDL50 · Feb 21, 2020

I wonder if people would act the same if it was a different publisher, like say someone internally at Naughty Dog or From Software leaked info for an currently in the works yet unannounced project. Would people also do the "Fuck insert company" reactions for trying to track down a breach of NDA within their company.

Especially since these sorts of leaks would make marketing and hype build up pointless. No point in hyping up an upcoming release for a new title when everyone already knows it's a thing.

I could care less if it was an Activision, EA, or even Square-Enix game. The company is irrelevant. Still leak culture and breaking NDA ahead of trade conferences like E3 or PAX has always been a issue.

ObbyDent · Feb 21, 2020

LycanXIII said:
So weird that they'd target this Reddit user for leaking a picture of a title screen, and not someone like Schreier who has reported several times about this years CoD struggles.

I don't believe that anyone should be targeted, and they should just say "yeah, something's coming" and be done with it.

How is this weird? Do you not know how journalism works my dude

SP. · Feb 21, 2020

Since when is trying to find an employee leaking your shit setting a bad precedent? This happens far too often with Call of Duty and I can only imagine at this point they're tire of it.

GranddadFreeman · Feb 21, 2020

I hope them upvotes were worth it

Madao · Feb 21, 2020

this is what companies decide to copy from Nintendo... welp.

OnanieBomb · Feb 21, 2020

Nintendo sends ninjas, Activision sends lawyers

Deleted member 45414 · Feb 21, 2020

Looks like mobster Activision-Blizzard is at it again, who are they gonna send goons to now?

Barrel Cannon · Feb 22, 2020

bsigg said:
They're trying to figure out where it came from so they can a) sue who leaked it and b) set a precedent of suing people who leak confidential information to deter people.

This, and they are right to do so

inner-G · Feb 22, 2020

They must think it's internal or something and want to fire the person

HellofaMouse · Feb 22, 2020

Einchy said:
I mean, why? The new update had a trailer for this, it's no secret it's coming. All the image revealed was that it's called Warzone.

This seems real fucking petty.

Its done to intimidate future leakers, "dont mess with us or we'll go after you"

Whether they actually catch the guy or not is irrelevant.

and yes. it IS petty.

medyej · Feb 22, 2020

OmegaDL50 said:
I wonder if people would act the same if it was a different publisher, like say someone internally at Naughty Dog or From Software leaked info for an currently in the works yet unannounced project. Would people also do the "Fuck insert company" reactions for trying to track down a breach of NDA within their company.

Especially since these sorts of leaks would make marketing and hype build up pointless. No point in hyping up an upcoming release for a new title when everyone already knows it's a thing.

I could care less if it was an Activision, EA, or even Square-Enix game. The company is irrelevant. Still leak culture and breaking NDA ahead of trade conferences like E3 or PAX has always been a issue.

I mean if you want you can go back and search to when a site leaked a ton of art and information about the new God of War before it was even revealed, including the norse mythology and viking stuff. Sony ninjas went so ham on that site it basically disappeared from existence.

stormfire · Feb 22, 2020

Admist copyright strikes and takedown notices from Activision, the digging for more Warzone info continues.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ModernWarzone/comments/f4n6jv/megathread_huge_easy_to_read_compilation_of/

Activision files DMCA subpoena against Reddit to identify Warzone leaker

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