Nintendo of America has filed an application for a DMCA subpoena at a district court in California which, if granted, would order Discord to reveal the identity of the person who leaked The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's art book back in February.
TorrentFreak reported earlier today that the company's attorneys applied for the DMCA subpoena on 7th April 2023, and it specifically mentions the name of the user who Nintendo believes is responsible for the leak, along with the name of the Discord server where the images reportedly leaked first. As laid out under US copyright law in Section 512(h), a DMCA subpoena requires that a provider — for example, a sales website or a social media platform — must disclose the details of the infringer.
Nintendo has been aware of the leak for a while, it seems, as the company initially sent a DMCA notice on 21st February. Discord responded to the request, which contained multiple links, confirming that it would be removing the content from the server.
Things didn't end there, however, as multiple users were still sharing images from the leaked art book via private messages. Nintendo contacted Discord again hours later with a second request — an "immediate review and takedown" of the server. Discord responded the following day stating that it had issued a warning to the server for reported activity.
Now, Nintendo — which is notoriously protective of its IP to the point where it's had various fan mods, hacks, and emulations taken down — has issued a DMCA subpoena in an attempt to gain the "the name(s), address(es), telephone number(s), and e-mail addresses(es) of the user". If it passes, Discord will have to comply.
One thing to take from this story is that the leaks are probably real if Nintendo is taking this much action. As we've mentioned previously, we're not going to be showing any of the images here, but many pages from the Collector's Edition art book were leaked online back in February, and there were lots of spoilery details.