Nintendo Requests Court to Make Discord Disclose Identity of Zelda Leaker

Nintendo has asked the court to subpoena Discord for the identity of a user who leaked unauthorized images of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's official art book.

In February 2023, three months before the release of the game, an art book featuring over 200 pages of character and location designs was leaked online. The leak was noticed by the media when it surfaced on Reddit, but it was first shared on a Discord channel that has since been deleted.

As reported by TorrentFreak, on April 7, 2023, Nintendo issued a subpoena to the district court of the Northern District of California, requesting that Discord disclose the personal information of user Julien#2743, including their name, address, telephone number, and email address.

Nintendo alleges that this user published the art book on the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Discord channel, and is therefore "responsible for posting infringing content."

It appears that Nintendo has been aware of the leak for some time, as earlier, on February 21, the company sent a DMCA notice to Discord. The online community platform responded to the request and confirmed that they would remove the content from the server.

However, according to Nintendo, some users were still exchanging images from the leaked art book through private messages, so the publisher contacted Discord once again, a few hours later, with a request for an "immediate review and takedown" of the server. Discord responded the next day, stating that it had given the server a warning for the reported activity.

The situation has now resulted in Nintendo taking action by issuing a DMCA subpoena in an effort to obtain the personal information of the user. If the subpoena is granted, Discord will be obliged to comply. 

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